"Tumbleweed" refers to people who have no attachment to housing, often moving from place to place. The prototype for this expression was desert and steppe plants, which have an original way of settling.
Traveling plants
Tumbleweed is formed from herbaceous, less often shrubby, plants found in deserts and semi-deserts, as well as in steppe areas. A distinctive feature of such vegetation is the presence of a thin stem and long, spreading, often tenacious branches that form a spherical bush.
When the plant is dead and dry, the wind breaks it off at the base or pulls it out of the ground along with the root. The bush, due to its rounded shape, rolls under the gusts of wind over fields, steppes, any open spaces, hence the tumbleweed got its name. On the way, it adheres to the same bushes, thorns, straw and the remains of other plants, growing into rather large "structures" up to several meters in diameter.
Tumbleweed is a form of plant adaptation to dispersing seeds by the wind, also known as anemochoria.
A tumbleweed is capable of traveling long distances over open areas, scattering the seeds of the plants that form it as it goes. This phenomenon is important in the reproduction and dispersal of many species of steppe and desert flora.
Tumbleweed plants
Westerns give the impression that tumbleweed is an exclusively American phenomenon. But plants with such a specific form of settlement are found all over the world. The main condition is a dry climate and large open spaces. You can see the rolling ball in Africa, Central Asia, and in many regions of Russia.
There are several dozen species of tumbleweed plants. They are found in the families of Asteraceae, Clove, Cabbage, Umbrella, Marevy, Lamb, Pig, and Asparagus.
Asparagus, known to gourmets, can also be collected in tumbleweeds at a certain period of life.
In Russia, tumbleweeds can be seen in the semi-desert regions of the Astrakhan region and Kalmykia, formed by various plants of the Kermek genus, for example, Kermek Gmelin. In the steppe belt, common cutter, flat-leaved erythematosus are more common
and Kachim paniculata.
Figurative meaning
It is noteworthy that the English name for tumbleweed - thumbleweed, is also called people who do not linger in one place.
The expression "tumbleweed" also has a figurative meaning, it is applied to people who, like plants of the same name, do not have "roots" - they often move, are not tied to one place.