Need info on harvesting cranesbill seeds

On some of my cranesbill, I waited until the 4 seeds popped up from the base of the sticklike piece (see pic) and then harvested before the seeds fell off. Question 1 - did I wait long enough to harvest these - i.e. will they be viable?
On another cranesbill, I harvested some before the seeds popped up from the base. Did I harvest too soon? When can these seeds be harvested?

And are the seed-like pieces at the end of the curli-ques the actual seeds - or are these pods that contain the seeds?

Any help much appreciated!
Thanks.

I grow a lot of cranesbills, but harvesting depends a bit on the kind of cranesbill. Some will launch their seeds as soon they pop up from the base. In that case harvest is too late. Did you check if there are seeds in it. It looks like the seeds of Geranium pratense to me and in that case the seeds must be inside the shells.
The best way to harvest seeds from cranesbills is put a organza baggie around the seedpods, before they are ripe.
Jonna

Thanks Jonna. I don't know the name, but here's a fuzzy pic of the one those seeds are from. It's one of the larger cranesbills.

This message was edited Jul 3, 2009 12:59 PM

Another pic of seeds I harvested from what I think is phaem. It has dark purple flowers and matching dark blotches on the leaves. These seeds didn't pop up from the base, like the others did, but the "stems" were brown and I was afraid I might lose them if I didn't harvest.

Do you think I have viable seeds? And again, are they individual seeds, or pods that contain the seed?

Altough I'm growing 12 kind of Geraniums, I'm not an expert. But it looks like the Geranium pratense. Here are the pictures of mine. Did you check if the seeds were still in the shells?

The seeds must be in those little pods. If you harvested them as you described, they are viable.

If there are no hard seeds in the pods, they already popped away if your Geranium is a pratense.

NOW I see what you mean, Jonna. They are so dark in color that I didn't see they had already opened and dropped their seeds - all except ONE, so far, so at least now I know what the seed looks like! I guess I'll have to make some little seed-catcher bags. The phaem ones haven't opened yet. Guess I'll wait to see if they do, or if they're the seeds themselves.

I lost almost all of my hellebore seeds to the ground, and I think I'm about to lose a bunch of corydalis ochroleuca seeds if I don't make some bags soon - and I really want some of those - don't know why they didn't self-seed last year.

Thanks so much for your help and advice!