Hitchhiker Plants - Song Page
©
from album Out on the Tallgrass Prairie
Album Note:
In this children's song, we review the incredible variety of the pesky seeds that stick to our clothes when out and about.
Their needles, barbs, and burs, though an important adaptation for seed dispersal, are a headache for little barefoot kids, hikers, & animals.
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LYRICS
How can a seed find a good place to grow?
Some use water or wind to reach a new home.
Some are eaten by critters who poop them elsewhere.
But some hitch a ride on an animal’s hair.
Those hitchhiker seeds have needles and thorns
And prickly barbs with sharp little horns.
They grab and they stab, and they cling to your clothes,
And find their way up into little girls’ toes.
They’re pointy and prickly, jagged and hooked.
They stick to your clothes and drive you berserk.
I know they have reasons to stick to my pants,
But I’m pretty darn sick of these hitchhiker plants.
Cockleburs tangle your-horse’s long-mane.
Buff-a-lo burs will spur you in pain.
Puncture vines puncture your bicycle tires.
Sandburs poking you feels like a fire.
With mean little stickers, scales, and spines,
They look like they’re armed for some awful crime.
Stick-tight seeds cause terrible woes.
Hundreds will stick to your socks and your clothes.
You can’t get ‘em off except one at a time.
I think they started the Velcro design.
I know they have reasons to stick to my pants.
They’re hitchin’ a ride just to give ‘em a chance
To piggyback over the prairie expanse,
Those prickly stickery hitchhiker plants.