High winds are prevailing in southern California and the Central Coast, reports my mother in her first, eyewitness contribution to Urban Plant Research. In Santa Barbara County, she can hardly venture outside because of winds over 25 miles per hour. She also read that over in Victorville, which lies between Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert, the wind has residents trapped inside for another reason: it has swept mountains of tumbleweeds against their houses, blocking doors and windows! Check out these Google Image search results she sent over:
We here at Urban Plant Research have long been interested in tumbleweeds and urban tumbleweeds (tumbling, windblown plastic bags). Are their tumbleweeds where you live?
urban plant research 
Tumbleweed invasion! The closest we get in Chicago is dandelion seed piles that are maybe an inch-tall.
Hahahaha. We are also getting seed piles in Berlin this year from tree seeds; I haven’t figured out which kind of tree. I haven’t seen this before and I’m guessing it’s a combination of the very late, and thus sped-up spring, and windy weather.
Great post, Mrs. Kuo. Keep them coming. :)
I agree. And Also, I love your profile picture!
Thanks Leslie! The photo was taken last year when I was in Inverness.
Hi Leslie, great post on those tumbleweeds. I’ll add one strange twist: I was in Spain a few years ago talking to an ecologist and he explained that the iconic images of tumbleweeds in cowboy films were often, in fact, shot in Europe: so-called “spaghetti” westerns. So that made me wonder, are the species in Europe and the US the same or is it just that there are tumbleweed-formed plants in both places? Doing some brief searching now, it seems that a common tumbleweed in the US, Kali tragus (AKA Salsola tragus AKA Russian thistle), is – you guessed it – originally from Eurasia! So it tumbles its way not only across the West, but also across oceans.
Hi Jonah, thank you for the interesting information. I have idly wondered about the tumbleweeds in spaghetti westerns (these films are very popular in Germany and I enjoy watching them with my in-laws, especially ones with Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer) but had never looked up more information. I would have guessed that they were a different plant with a similar shape and seed-distributing behavior, so interesting to learn from you that there is a common tumbleweed which grows in both the US and Eurasia.
Now we await for them to tumble across Mars and the Moon.
Yes!