By PAUL HETZLER

This spring and early summer, Mother Nature presented us with a bouquet of tree flowers on a superlative scale. While allergy sufferers didn’t appreciate the April “pollen bomb” of flower-laden willows, elms and maples, the stunning white tresses of black locust flowers in late May and early June were as heavenly to behold as they were to smell. Hawthorn and shrub dogwood flowers lit up fencerows and pastures with particular brilliance, as nannyberry, arrowwood and other members of the viburnum clan are doing as we speak. Or read.

Now we’re beginning to see the results of this shameless excess, the seeds. For several reasons, maple seeds are of particular interest. Generally it’s the aerodynamic properties of maple seeds that grab our attention. Known to botany geeks as “samaras,” maple seeds have a broad wing that makes them spin as they fall, prolonging their flight and allowing them to travel some distance. In most cases it’s a one-way flight, although many children, mine included, go through a phase where they’ll scoop handfuls of these winged seeds—along with the requisite amount of dirt—and fling them aloft, delighted with their helicopters. But maybe there’s an app for that now.

This year it’s the sheer quantity of seeds that caught my eye. The spent flowers that dropped from sugar maples filled gutters and clogged storm drains like great clots of seaweed. And even though not every flower resulted in a seed, some maples are sporting far more seeds than leaves. Heavy seed production following severe stress is well-documented, especially in forest stands attacked by pests or disease. It appears to be a bid to keep the species going at the expense of the current generation of trees. Although there’s no way to “prove” it, it’s widely believed that the heavy seed crop on maples—and on most other woody plants as well—is a direct result of stress induced by last year’s drought.

Due to a confluence of conditions, last year we had the driest soil ever recorded; our part of the state was below the first percentile in terms of historic average soil moisture. In other words, we know for certain that trees less than a hundred years old have never gone through a drought like 2012. It’s in the middle of the growing season that trees “decide” how many flower buds they’ll make for the following spring, and last year trees chose to expend precious energy making a bumper crop of seeds.

You may have already noticed the plethora of small “helicopters” shed by our native red maples (not to be confused with the red-leaf variety of Norway maple). Well, get ready for a lot more, and larger models at that. In addition to Norway maple, we have four native species of overstory (large) maples: sugar, red, silver, and boxelder (yep, that’s right). Of these five species, four have yet to drop seeds.

Don’t be alarmed if your trees start looking yellow or brown in the next few weeks; that’s just the seeds maturing. Then, move over Sikorsky: it’s raining helicopters in the North Country. Before you break out the shop vac and power broom, though, I recommend you get out with the kids and throw some helicopters in the air.

Paul Hetzler is a forester and a horticulture and natural resources educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County.