Goldfinches eat bull and pasture thistle seeds. The discarded silky parachutes are gathered by mice to line their winter sleeping quarters. Acorns fall from the oaks and are quickly cached by squirrels and their kin. The reproductive part of the plant is the mushroom cap and stem. Spores the size of dust are shed when the mushroom is ripe.
Spores are similar to the seeds of flowering plants.
Mid September Field corn ripens. Apples and grapes are ready for picking. Migrating native sparrows feed on the seeds of dandelion, crabgrass, and green and yellow foxtail grasses. These plants, which are weeds to us humans, become life-giving energy sources to the birds. Late September Jewelweed, a wild Impatiens which lives in damp and shady places, comes to the end of its bloom time.