Windblown golden raintree lanterns

This morning I was astonished to find my driveway littered with little green lanterns -- seed pods that the golden raintree's falling flowers had left behind only days ago. Developing almost invisibly within  the tree's dense foliage, the little green pods had grown to their mature size in yesterday's steamy sunshine, and then sometime in the night a gusty rainstorm snapped their fragile stems and brought them down. In the fall, the pods that are still left on the tree will mature to a warm brown, resembling little lighted Chinese lanterns when backlit by the autumn sun.