Gum ball

I picked up this seed pod up earlier in the week, it's the seed pod of the sweet gum tree, apparently the most dangerous tree to have in your garden because those spiky seed pods are a real pain to tread on (literally and figuratively) and they can become very dangerous projectiles too when you're mowing the lawn where they're on, I'm not making this up, see here :-)

These Liquidambar styraciflua trees are all along the Waterway at The Woodlands,  the fruits are called gum balls and later turn into these spiky bits which I can imagine can be used as decorative items.  For Tiny Tuesday with thanks to our host wrperry

Today started rather stormy with severe weather warnings , rain and thunder storms and even a tornado warning, but over here after an hour of heavy rain it started to clear again. It is considerably cooler now , quite a difference with yesterday and there 's a cold wind blowing. Luckily enough the storm cleared the Houston area as fast as it did, which meant my friend Calista could drive up safely from downtown Houston and we had a lovely time chatting and setting the world to rights over lunch.

Thanks very much for your kind comments and stars for yesterday's magnolia mono and the AT results :-)