Ears of Wind, Wind Ears

Ears of Wind is a delicious and a dioecious plant. It's delicious because you can eat all parts of the plant and it's dioecious because you need a male and a female plant in order for them to flower, make fruit - orecchiette - and produce seeds. I'm in love with this plant! It's easy to grow even for a black thumb and cooking with it is a snap - just sauté, roast or cook the whole plant in a stew or soup. Besides their rich flavors, their mating behaviors are totally cool. The tiny male flowers are invisible during the day, but LOOK amazing at night when the male plant is alight with the twinkling of thousands of sparkling gem-like anthers. The male flower buds are red and tightly closed. When they open, these buds reveal gem-like anthers of a single color that fluoresce in the dark like a lightening bug! Hybrids of Ears of Wind each produce a different color of anthers so it's fun to collect them all. The male must pollinate the female by blowing star-shaped, golden pollen into her ear-shaped flower. Each male flower sings a different SOUND when attempting to get 'the ear' of the lovely, huge female flowers. When she does hear his siren song, she slowly moves her flowers in his direction and poof, he blows pollen into her open ear.