weed that snaps and shoots out its seed when touched? (in Georgia)

[wsmoak]

I have the strangest weed in my yard. As you walk, or if anything touches it (probably also if the wind blows and it touches its neighbor) it makes a snapping sound and the seed shoots out as far as several inches away.

Anyone know what it is?

I'll try to post a picture of it, but this may involve lying on the ground.

ETA: picture

... and more pictures

Overhead view...

detail of flowers:

-Wendy

 

[wifezilla]

I think I saw a sci-fi movie with some aliens that did that

 

[hoodat]

I'm afraid you will need pics to get it identified. That way of shooting off seeds is quite a widespead habit among many plants, both weeds and garden plants. The squirting cucumber has been known to shoot seeds 27 feet. So far as I know that's the record for the seed shooting olympics.

 

[silkiechicken]

The wild pea-like plants in WA do that. When we were kids, we would take the almost ready to pop pods and line them up on the hood of grandpa's car in the sun. We'd take bets on which one would pop first. LOL

 

[bid]

I will hazard a guess. Bittercress AKA shotweed. I have it everywhere. Small white flowers. Very determined self seeder.

 

[Holachicka]

Wow! we don't have anything like that on my property... forget the pics, can't you take a video?

 

[wsmoak]

It doesn't show up in pictures of the ground, all the weeds blend together. Here are the stalks with leaves and the seed pods:

 

[AmyRey]

Wow! we don't have anything like that on my property... forget the pics, can't you take a video?

^^^

Ditto this. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing.

 

[silkiechicken]

Those look pretty similar to what we used to pick and pop! Only ours had pods going up the length of the stem... no idea what they were, just know we don't really have them anymore since we'd pick all the pods and pop them off the car and they'd just die on the gravel... kind of how I single handedly destroyed the entire Californian poppy population that was highly established around the fence till I decided to pick them all.

 

[lesa]

Have you ever grown "spider plant", aka cleome? It's seed pods look just like that. When you bring them inside to dry and save seeds, you can hear them popping. They twist up and spit. Maybe that is a wild version??