How big are lion's tail seeds?

I ordered some Lion's tail seeds (leonotus leonurus) and got a very small plastic bag that appeared to have some brown powder in it. Inspecting it closely, there are probably several thousand tiny brown specs. They are a little longer than wide (not round). I held a ruler up to the bag and on average could get about 4 or 5 of them in one sixteenth of an inch. I sprinkled a few hundred (guessing) of them onto some potting soil and have kept them damp for about 3 weeks now - nothing growing. Of course as soon as they hit the soil they were invisible, since they were so small. I found a couple pics on the internet of this type of seed, but not with anything like a ruler or coin next to them so I can't tell the actual size. The ones in the pictures look small, but maybe not as small as the specs I got in the bag. Can anyone tell me if these could really be the seeds I was supposed to get? Any tricks to getting them to germinate?

Do you have any left that you could post a picture of?

Also, you might check the rating in Garden Watchdog http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/ for the company you ordered them from--if they have a great rating then chances are better that the seeds were real, but if they have a horrible rating then it's less likely.

I checked thru the Garden Watchdog list that you mentioned, and don't find the name of the store in there. If they gave me the wrong seed (or a bunch of powder) they'll definitely get in that list with a big negative. I don't have a microscope attachment for my camera, so I'll have to try the macro setting and see how much of a closeup I can get. I haven't posted any pictures here yet - is there any picture size or file size limits I should be aware of? Should this be a jpeg file? I also notice that you have a link in your message - how do you that in this forum?

The seeds are about 1mm (maybe 1.5mm) long and sort of oval shaped.

Hopefully Elsa's info is enough for you to figure out if your seeds are what they're supposed to be or not...but if not, pics have to be jpeg or gif format (I think png format is also OK but not positive). There's not really a limit on size, but if you have a camera that takes pics that are a really large file size sometimes the system will get hung up trying to upload, so if that happens to you then downsize the pic a little bit and try again.

To do links, you go to the page you want to link to and copy whatever text shows up in the address bar at the top of the page, then come here and paste it in. It won't look like a link when you first paste it in, but when you preview your message you'll be able to see it as a link and check to make sure it works. Or you can type in "www.sitename.com" (leave out the quotes...I put those in so it wouldn't try to turn my text into a link). Also make sure you've got a space on either side of the link--if you run the link right up next to your text then it either won't create the link at all (if you're missing the space at the beginning) or it'll include text that's not really part of the link (if you're missing a space at the end) and then it'll take people to an error page since the page with that extra text in the address doesn't really exist.

Thanks Elsa and ecrane. If I measure the seed's length the biggest ones are just under 1/16 of an inch. If I'm calculating it right, that would be around 1.5 mm. So I won't need to upload any photo's, but at least now I know what I needed to know about that. There's a lot of other real small specs in the bag, but if those 1-1.5 mm things really are seeds, then I've got hundreds of them in this bag. The ones I sprinkled onto some dirt 3 weeks ago have done nothing. And like I said, once they land in the dirt you loose sight of them since they're so tiny. Which leads to the next question - how would you go about germinating these tiny things? Do they need to be warmed up? Mine have probably been at around 70 to 77 degrees (F not C). I can't imagine how small those sprouts must be from seeds this tiny. Thanks again for the info.

Nightplanter, I just scattered mine on the soil. I must add that the ones my son direct sown last year, didn't have a very high germination rate. Maybe it is Nature's way of making sure that there is enough space for the plants. I also have only one little plant that germinated in the original bed. That said, it is fine with me, as the original plant is in it's third year, and just getting bigger and better. I prune it back a bit after flowering (Spring) to encourage it to grow bushy.
The sunbirds in my garden just love the nectar. That and the "Mexican Sage" are the plants that keeps them busy the whole day. They don't even look at my nectar feeder.

I don't think we have any sunbirds around here, but there are lots of hummingbirds who would also like those plants. But they're probably not gonna see any this year. I am in zone 5b, a lot colder than where you live. So this type of plant ends up being grown as an annual. I've never even seen one of these plants yet, except in pictures, but I have read messages from others who live in this climate and have been able to grow them. We get below freezing weather at night starting in mid October(which is fall here, remember our seasons are reversed from yours) and by midwinter it might never go above freezing, day or night, for weeks at a time. So these plants have to be started inside, and moved outside when it warms up enough. They don't bloom here until fall, then after that they would get killed off by the cold. I'm starting these way too late, but I want to see if I can at least get some growing. I'm starting the seeds inside, so I'm wondering if I need to add some heat to them to help them germinate. If I get any plants, I am going to put at least one in a pot outside - that way I can bring it inside when it gets cold in the fall, and try to keep it going long enough to at least see those orange blooms. But first I have to get some to germinate.

If I remember correctly the seeds germinated in early Spring. Maybe you can keep a few to start late winter under a light?
do you have L. lionitus or L. nepetifolia? I have the latter, and they tend to flower more towards late Autumn and during Winter (have some flowers at the moment).
Let me know if you want some seed. Will have some in a few week's time.

I will save some to try next spring, assuming I can get anything to sprout now. The ones I have are supposed to be "leonotus leonurus". From what I have read from other people who have grown these around here, they will also bloom in the fall. Probably since they take awhile to get to the blooming point and they can't really get started here until June. Any earlier and they would be killed off by the occasional frost or freezes we get in May. So even when people start them inside, and move them outside in June, they still don't get to the point of blooming until fall. Thanks for the offer, but for now I'm just going to try to get the ones I have to grow. I have sometimes started other types of seeds between 2 moist paper towels. That way you can see which ones are germinating easier. I might try that with these - at least I will be able to see the tiny brown seeds on the white paper towel. Can't see them once they hit the dirt. This may or may not work with this kind of seed. I can't imaging there is much nutrients in a seed that small, so the plant may have to start off in some dirt so it gets some nourishment right away. With the amount of bugs and critters in my yard, I can't get much of anything to start right in the ground. Usually have to start things in pots until they get big enough so that a single hungry bug can't wipe out the entire plant.

Good luck, I also tend to start my seeds that way - or the ones that I only have a few of.... At least that way one can keep an eye on their progress.

Esla, this is a little late, don't know if you are going to see this post - I should have asked this sooner... Did you ever try starting these Lion's tail seeds in a paper towel? I am not having much success getting these to sprout, but I don't know what to expect to see from seeds this tiny and when they should germinate. I tried them on top of some potting soil, kept it moist for over 3 weeks and never saw anything. Now if I look at that container I can spot a lot of brown hair like things some almost an inch long. Whatever they are, they are dead now. Don't know if those were the roots or sprouts or what, but I never saw ANY green at all. So I have tried some in moist paper towels. Actually, they were fairly wet at first. I looked at them a day later and they all looked different. They seeds (tiny specs) had been a dark brown and now there was no dark brown, just real light brown. Looking real close it kind of looks like they started to sprout, or maybe just swelled up from being too wet. No green anywhere. A couple are kind of standing up, but still barely 3 millimeter high. Just kind of white colored. The tiny seeds kind of looked like bug eggs to me, and some of these sprouts or whatever they have become kind of look like larva. If anything moves they're out of here! They have not changed at all since that first overnight change 5 days ago. I have kept them moist. Did you get these to sprout this way and what did they look like? Any green at all? Hope you see this post.
-Gary

Gary,
Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, but the light is just not enough this time of day - anyway, it is to show you what the seeds look like.
I can't remember how look it took for me to see green, I'd guess about two weeks, but you should see green... After that I just put them in potting mix.

Let me know if you can't get those to germinate, or if you ended up paying for something that doesn't resemble the seeds, so I can collect some for you and send them your way.

Elsa

Thanks for posting that picture. I see the one you have lined up with the ruler is 3 mm long. I found a ruler with millimeters on it (most around here just have inches) and measured mine. None of the ones I have are any longer than 1 mm. The plant you have is l. nepitifolia, these seeds are supposed to be l. lionitus. I have seen pictures of both and the plants are kind of different, so I was thinking that maybe the seeds might be different. So I have just spent a lot of time searching on Google and looking at many results and I finally found a couple of web sites with info on l. lionitus that had the seed size listed. They said 1.5 to 2 mm. So the seeds I got are either the wrong seeds, or they are not fully grown and weren't ready to use yet. At this point its way too late in the year to start them now, by mid October we will be getting frost and below-freezing temps at night. So I have to give give up on this for this year. I ordered the seeds from Ohiotraders Botanicals (ohiotraders.com), and now I would not recommend that company to anyone. - I edited this message on 6-24 to put in the exact correct name of the company I got the wrong and/or bad seeds from (Ohiotraders Botanical) to be sure Google searches on them will show this message. I am going to write them, will update this with their response.

Gary

This message was edited Jul 24, 2009 11:56 AM

Update: I sent them an email via their "contact us" section of their web site. I explained the situation to them and told them they either sent me the wrong seeds or sent seeds that weren't fully grown and were not ready to be harvested. I requested a refund. They answered my email a few hours later saying they were sorry and they would issue a refund. An hour or so later I got an email from Paypal saying I had gotten a refund. So at least they gave me a quick refund, but it would have been better if I had gotten good seeds from them in the first place. It's too late in the year to try again, so now I have to wait 'till next year to try growing this plant.

I am just glad you at least got your money back. Good luck for next year.

Elsa