High in a cottonwood tree

March 29 found me photographing catkins of a cottonwood tree. A magnificent clear blue sky made a perfect backdrop to highlight the yellow-green female catkins along the far reaches of a limb.

Spaced at short intervals along the outer limbs of the tree, these female catkins grow to about 5 inches long. Each catkin may have between 30 to 50 round seed pods growing along a single stem. Within each seed pod several seeds are growing.

Cottonwood trees can grow to about 90 feet tall, and a single large tree can produce hundreds of thousands of seeds in a single year. Each very tiny seed is covered with white, cotton-like fluff when ripe. On warm, dry, late spring days a gentle wind will blow, releasing the seeds, and it will look like it is snowing.