Woodward: Seedtime and Harvest

Maclin Horton's picture of a magnolia seed got me thinking about seeds in general, and red seeds in particular. We have a Texas mountain laurel by our front door that produces huge clumps of purple blooms in the spring (they smell like grapes) and, thereafter, leathery little seed pods each of which contains a single large red seed, about the size of a pinto bean. (In fact, one of the names of the Texas mountain laurel out in far west Texas is frijolillo -- the little bean tree.)

The seeds -- impossibly, almost cartoonishly red -- look like something you might trade a cow for and then pay a visit to a giant. And while Maclin considers it a wonder that he never ate a magnolia seed, I consider it a blessing that I never ate a Texas mountain laurel seed. They are reportedly hallucinogenic in small doses, deadly in larger doses, and the dosage is tricky.

Our Texas mountain laurel was about four feet tall when we planted it 12 years ago and is only about eight feet tall now. It is -- in the words of Neil Sperry, the dean of Texas horticulturists -- a "deliberate grower." Perhaps my grandchildren will be able to rest in its shade. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure I don't have time to grow any more from these seeds.