The rain this weekend has relieved the drought (the official word from the National Weather Service is found at: http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/seasonal_drought.html) so I think you can plant your tree between now and the ned of October (and maybe even surround it with water lilies). Now, more on the side issue I am still wondering about, the identity of the "messy" tree mentioned earlier. First, the information I posted earlier concerning the fruit of the Eastern Cottonwood tree, Populus deltoides may have been misleading. The true picture of the fruit is as follows: a mass of white cottony material, with tiny brown seeds embedded within the white cottony material, and without any covering, shell, or husk over the cottony material. The individual seeds with their cottony "parachutes" eventually separate from the seed mass and disperse, producing the phenomenon of "cottonwood snow" which anyone who has lived near a mature, seed-producing tree will not forget. (I still remember the blankets of "cottonwood snow" produced by one tree near my grandmother's house.) The following pictures of Populus deltoides should be helpful: Populus deltoides: fruit http://woodyplants.nres.uiuc.edu/plant/popde50 Populus deltoides: leaves (note the species name "deltoides" originates from the spade-like or "deltoid" leaf shape) http://woodyplants.nres.uiuc.edu/plant/popde10 Populus deltoides: whole tree, growth habit (vase-shaped to rounded, fast-growing to 75-100 feet tall, with coarse (open) branching) http://woodyplants.nres.uiuc.edu/plant/popde00 Populus deltoides: bark (medium gray, deeply ridged and furrowed) http://woodyplants.nres.uiuc.edu/plant/popde70 At any rate, I don't think the fruit of the "messy" tree mentioned earlier in this thread ("As for the infamous fluffy pods, they are brown and round, and when you crush one they disintegrate into a handful of feathery fibers") is anything like cottowood. Could you describe any other distinctive features of this tree (leaf shape and size, flowers, bark, etc.)?

Sounds like a gourd family member, possibly Sicyos or Echinocystis

Unfortunately, with no green plant material to work with, it's almost impossible to say which species of Matelea it is for sure. Some species climb, and others are prostrate., and there are other differences. You can look at the entries on this i. nat link to see if any observations were made in the area you found this pod. That still doesn't mean that it's M. biflora. There could be other Matelea species nearby. Nice pictures in the link! And, perhaps there are no people making observations in that area also? Did you collect any seeds? You can grow them, and then have it ID'd? Maybe someone can ID Matelea pods, but I can't https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=18&taxon_id=165186 Milkweed maps created by Brad Grimm. Thanks Brad!🤠Matelea biflora Matelea baldwynianaHello, goodbye.

It is not a seed pod but a baby plantlet. New plantlets grow at the tips of the flower stems, weighing them down until they bend to touch the ground and take root. The new plants will eventually repeat the process, causing the iris to "walk" across the garden, hence the common name of 'walking iris'.