Different colored seeds in "Blue Star" packet

I opened my packet of "Blue Star" (packaged by Burpee for WalMart) this evening to soak them before planting out tomorrow. I noticed that there are 14 black seeds & 42 tan seeds. Is this normal to have two different colored seeds? I hadn't intended to do a study, but now it has attracted my attention. I'm going to plant the black seeds separate from the tan ones and see if they are actually different from eachother. (not a "real" study by scientific standards, I know, but it should satisfy my curiosity, anyhow)It will be a while before I can tell, though, so in the mean time, I am curious if this is a common thing? Thanks!

I was thinking about this at work today, so I just had to google it - which, of course, pointed me to Dave's Garden Plant Files! (Now wy didn't I look there first? Duh!)

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/51633/index.html with this comment from Ron...

On Dec 12, 2005, RON_CONVOLVULACEAE from Netcong, NJ (Zone 5b) wrote:
I am aware of two slightly different forms of this cultivar,the earlier form having light beige seeds and a later form having dark brown to black seeds that I first saw circa 1988...This cultivar looks exactly like the 'missing in action' Ipomoea tricolor cultivar "Summer Skies",except for the darker star coloration to the folds,...the "Summer Skies" cultivar had no pigmentation to the corolla folds as it apparently lacked the gene for spotting as described by Dr.Yoneda on his authoritative listing of morning glory genes and their function relative to morning glory plant pigmentation...

kmom246 - The same is true for the seeds of the Ipomoea tricolor cultivar "Flying Saucers" in that there are both light and dark seeded forms...the light seeded forms often have very light green vegetative parts and the dark seeded forms usually have a noticeable rosey tinting to the stem and along some of the veins...

The light seeded forms have usually flowered earlier for me,but the dark seeded forms seem to be a little bit more cold tolerant...

The color of the seeds can potentially affect sprouting under certain circumstances as the lighter seed allows sun or other light to penetrate more readily to the embryo and the darker pigmented seeds have a higher sunlight blocking factor...the rerason this can affect sprouting sometimes is because the chlorophyll is stored in different forms that are activated by either sunlight or darkness...the general rule is that if the seed was exposed to alot of light during it's developement,then it will sprout more readily if exposed to alot of light during germination,and if the seed developed under very dark conditions,then the seed will sprout quicker in the dark...this all being relative to the form of the chlorophyll present in the embryo and whether it has more of a tendency to be activated by either sunlight or darkness....and in Nature even 'seemingly' very slight differences in germination can make for significant longterm adaptational and survival results...

TTY,...

Ron

Thanks for the info! Very interesting!

Got my Flying Saucers and Blue Star seeds in the ground yesterday along where the south east and east south fences meet, separated by seed color. About 50' worth of chainlink. It will be interesting to see if the dark seeded types eventually become dominant here, even though they started out as only about 25% of the seeds in the packets.

There is a corner where the Blue Star and Flying Saucers meet, so I imagine there will be some crossing between them. That should be interesting to see over the years. Stuck some moon flowers here and there. I haven't seen the hawk moth catterpillars yet, this year, but Spring is running a little late. I hope they will enjoy the glories as much as I will.

Thanks again! Karla