We had noticed a few brittle tumbleweed skeletons lying around. But that was to be expected. Salsola tragus, as it’s properly called, or Russian thistle, has become ubiquitous in the West.

A tumbleweed stampede has enveloped communities ... Tumbleweeds are actually the remains of a Russian thistle plant, which break free from the soil to roam around the landscape untethered after ...

Tumbleweeds are most associated with the Desert West and come from the Russian thistle plant ... it becomes a tumbleweed, and the wind disperses the plant throughout the landscape.