Other forms: samaras
A samara is a tree fruit that has wings and usually just one seed. You may have seen samaras spinning through the air after falling from trees, which is why they are sometimes called helicopter seeds.
People call samaras lots of different things, including keys, wingnuts, and whirlybirds. The name samara comes from the Latin for "elm seed," but some other trees that produce samaras are maple, ash, and sycamore trees. When a samara gets blown off a tree, it spins away through the air on its thin wings. This allows the seed to be dispersed far from its parent tree, where it has a better chance of growing into a new tree.