https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-xC5Ml0oQs
I was forwarded the link above to what I thought was going to be simply a funny tumbleweed video (apparently I got tired of watching kittens on vacuum cleaners...) but realized it also had a story about some really interesting research from UC Riverside on tumbleweeds.
The work, conducted by Welles and Ellstrand, reports on the range expansion of a hybrid between two different members of the genus Salsola (both of which are sometimes known by various common names such as Russian thistle). Here's a link to the article and video: https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/35966
For those with access to a research library, here's a link to the paper "Rapid range expansion of a newly formed allopolyploid weed in the genus Salsola. American Journal of Botany 103(4): 1-5, 2016. http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/doi/10.3732/ajb.1500430
Have fun,
Brad