You’re driving alone down Highway 14 in the dark toward the Antelope Valley. It’s October and the annual Santa Ana winds are beginning to rear their ugly head. Halloween is on the horizon. Spooky things are out there seemingly to get you. You’re concentrating heavily on your travels – and the last thing you expect is an attack from some strange, round, dried up thing that has just attached itself to your car.

It’s a quick attack that shows no mercy. Once you get your adrenaline in check, you realize the nature of the ugly beast. You wonder if the paint on your car is OK, and then you’re petrified to think: Is it caught up underneath my car and now I look really silly driving to Palmdale with this massive basket stuck in my undercarriage?

That “thing” is tumbleweed – and you probably know that. But do most people know exactly what tumbleweed really is besides just being a scary, dried up, basket-like thing? What are its characteristics? Is it friend or foe? So many questions, and not many people have really thought about where this rolling “basket-monster” came from, let alone where is it going and why.

There are various plant species that can be considered “tumbleweeds” throughout most U.S. states; however, tumbleweed is most common in the American Southwest due to the hot, arid climate. Any plant considered for this prestigious honor has an extremely shallow root system, so when the upper portion of the weed dies and the wind blows, it uproots the top portion of the plant, hurling it down the street, across your back yard, only to discredit your property, or perhaps lodge under your car on the way down the road.

The species of tumbleweed common to Southern California is known as Russian thistle or prickly Russian thistle. Russian barbwire thistle is yet another species of tumbleweed that grows in the Mojave Desert, often hybridizing with Russian thistle, making a plant that looks like a mix of the two species.

Both species reproduce using seeds that can survive only for up to two years in the soil. It is often difficult to tell which weed is which under these circumstances. It’s known that these thistles (regardless of species) are an invasive weed, but it’s thought that the seedlings were transported from agricultural ships carrying grain during the mid- to late 1800s from European countries including Russia.

Russian thistle is a green, roundish, not-so-attractive weed that can grow quite large but is considered “standard” at 3 to 4 feet in diameter and about 3 feet high (or more). The root system is incredibly shallow, which is why it easily detaches from its roots when it dies.

Photo by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel; others by Mari Carbajal

Although this weed is considered noxious, it’s often allowed to be used as feed on open rangeland for livestock.

Russian thistle prefers to grow in sandy soil habitats such as cultivated fields, eroded slopes and on roadsides. The death of the tumbleweed is functional, since it’s necessary for the plant gradually to degrade in order for the weed to propagate. The seeds will disperse as the dead weed rolls across terrain. The seeds can also germinate well if they have fallen into wet areas of soil. Erosion is also a large factor for agriculture; one study showed that a single Russian thistle removed up to 44 gallons of water from the soil, in competition with a wheat crop.

The most famous trademark of the tumbleweed is its lifelong contract to appear in Western movies. Since the dawning of celluloid, this dead weed definitely emphasizes the parched existence of the cowboy’s daily life in the West. A desolate or deserted Western town would be nothing without the howling of the wind, the presence of dust, and runaway tumbleweeds going who knows where.

Important: Regardless of living in a populated area or in a rural community, removal of accumulated tumbleweeds from your property, fence lines, buildings, or around cars, is a crucial practice when thinking about annual weed abatement. These weeds are highly flammable and can ignite in the blink of an eye.

Other than that, we will just have to deal with a little annoyance and inconvenience from these rolling natural sculptures.

I once knew a real-estate agent who was deathly afraid of tumbleweeds and really disliked coming out to the desert to show property. I tried to look up what that phobia was called, but there doesn’t seem to be any established name associated with that fear. So for now, we can simply call it “tumbleweedophobia.”

Mari Carbajal is a docent-naturalist at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center.