Tumbleweeds are one of the most fun plants to watch in the desert! They start their lives as small, green, bushy plants growing in the ground with roots just like any other plant. But when they dry out, something amazing happens. The whole plant breaks off from its roots and starts rolling across the ground in the wind! They look like big, bouncy balls made of sticks, and they can roll really fast on a windy day. Some tumbleweeds can grow as big as a car!
As a tumbleweed bounces and rolls across the desert, it drops thousands of tiny seeds along the way so new plants can grow everywhere it travels. One single tumbleweed can carry up to 250,000 seeds! Tumbleweeds did not always live in America. They actually came from a faraway place called Russia a long time ago, hiding in bags of farm seeds. Sometimes tumbleweeds pile up against fences and buildings, making huge, prickly mountains. You might see them bouncing across a road or rolling through a town on a very windy day, just like in the movies!
