Where are the seed cases from the Hop hornbeam? When I went to look at the tree last week, I could only find two, hanging on the outer branches over the path. The tree has seed cases about two inches long made up of multiple little squashy (air filled?) sacs. I searched for several minutes and couldn’t find any on the grass below the tree. There were plenty of wind-blown leaves, so what happened to the seed cases? I don’t think they crumbled to nothing because I have one on the table that I collected months ago, and it is holding together with no signs of disintegrating.
Had squirrels taken them? That might be. It would fit with the relative inaccessibility of the two cases hanging on the furthest thin branches. Then again, was that location really squirrel-proof? Perhaps another smaller rodent, but what would be big enough to pulverise the seed case in search of the seeds?
The tree is on the path leading to the cafe, just to the left of the path when one is coming from the Hills Road entrance,