Beautiful Bloodroot Berries

Forgive the title, I gave in to the alliteration opportunity.  They really are not berries but seeds, as the pictures will show. 


 After the long winter we had here in Minnesota this year I enjoyed the Bloodroot when it bloomed, and I posted this picture on May 7th shortly after the last snowfall.


The Bloodroot flowers have now turned to seed pods, and the seed pods have started to open to show their fascinating inside.

 This picture shows the seed pod with backlighting, so the beries on their seedhead inside show through.

The seed pod here is a little less than two inches long, and is a yellowish-green color.





The pod splits along its long axis and opens to show the seeds inside, as can be seen below.

 Here are the seeds exposed with their "connections"  to the main seed stem.


It is the "connections" that caught my attention.  When I first saw them through the camera I thought they were little parasites or slugs or maggots of some kind. 

I watched closely for movement and then noticed that each seed has just one connection. and that it is a part of the plant.






But looking at the close up picture below shows that these do not look like any plant tissue I have seen before.

 This is the actual plant seed pod.  I didn't moisten it, spray it, open it, or change it in any way. 

To me each seed looks like a little apple, and the connection looks like a moist slug about to have supper.











The pod will curl open as it dries, and the "slug" connection will turn black, as the picture below shows.  the seed pod below was on another plant about a foot away from the one above.

The seeds dropped off with only a little bump, and each may become a new Bloodroot plant with flowers early next spring.