Every year, I get a bunch of pipevines (Aristolochia littoralis) growing along one of my fences. The vines provide a nice green cover over the fence and in the late summer and fall they produce the really cool looking flowers that they are named for. The vines also provide shelter and perches for the birds, and they are the sole host for the caterpillars of the pipevine swallowtail butterfly. Needless to say, I’m thrilled to have these vines around. But there is even more. Once those cool looking flowers have faded, they produce these interesting seed pods. They remind me of little hanging baskets, and that’s pretty much how they function, too. As they dry out, the seeds are held inside and are dispersed slowly by the wind, the rain, and the small animals that eat them. It seems to me to be a pretty effective system since that’s how my vines got here. They weren’t always here and I didn’t plant them. One spring a single vine began to grow along the fence. Over the years, it has become larger and thicker and now provides many wonderful benefits in my yard, including giving me plenty of things to photograph.