Fluff

Somewhere to the west of the Hurdman bus station, on a low, rather unkempt hillock overlooking the Rideau River, or at least it would have done had there not been some trees in the way, we came across a large number of white fluffy balls, one of which is illustrated left.

They appeared to have escaped from pods on otherwise uninteresting plants which were scattered about the hillock. Were they mutant dandelions? Mutant cotton plants? In any event, we did think that maybe one could do something spinning with the stuff, although we shall not risk trying to bring a sample home, as customs and/or agricultural people can get a bit stuffy about taking recently live parts of plants across state lines.

PS: the Rideau River is a substantial river, as big at Hurdman as the Thames is at, say, Kew. It is a tributary of the Ottawa River, and this last is a tributary of the St. Lawrence River. They do rivers big around here, with the last named warranting the French moniker of a fleuve rather than a mere rivière.

Reference 1: gmaps 45.410236, -75.667352.