Hi all --
A couple things have come up over the last few months, and I wanted to get a list together of plants that don't always form viable seeds, even though they look like they are seeds. I personally only know of 3 or 4, but I bet other people have others they could add to the list.
One that comes to mind is Lilies, genus Lilium. The flat discs are stacked in the seed pod in three chambers, but unless they have a little line in the center (the embryo), they are not viable. If you see them packed in a plastic bag, they will be sticking to the plastic, not sitting in the bottom of the bag. They are almost always, darker, thicker and heavier than the husky or chaffy seeds, but if you have no viable seeds in the pod, you can't compare them to the chaffy ones. Lilies do best when they are hand pollinated. If they weren't hand pollinated, chances are NONE of the seeds are viable. Hybrids are usually sterile, BTW, Black Beauty and Orienpets would be the most common, but the LA Hybrids are probably in there, too.
The other is Liatris. I have been in rrs and swaps where the Liatris is almost all chaff. The following is from a man who knows a lot more about seed than I, "Liatris produces about 75% empty seed shells. They will look like they are good seed, but many, **if not all**, will be empty, especially in drought years. You can check them with a fingernail. Good ones will *not* squish, but the rest will."
Along those same lines are grasses and Eryngium (Sea Hollies)....they usually have a blue thistle looking flower. I'm not sure how you determine if there is seed in there, but I suspect checking them with a fingernail as advised above would work. I have seen or gotten many packs that have like 1 or 2 seeds in them.
There is one more that I ran across recently, and I can't remember it right this second*, but the real reason for the post is to ask what other seeds are like this?
Can we make a list of these imposter-seeds? I do not want to sow hundreds of WS jugs, only to find out the seed I have isn't seed, it just looks like it :))
*(I just remembered, it's butterfly bush. Sometimes you see seed that hasn't been left on the plant long enough and isn't ripe.)
The second topic that goes along with this is seed from hybrids. Plant Files is pretty clear: "Seed is sterile or won't come true". Wellll, sterile could mean 1 out of 10 will germinate and be very close to the parent. But it could also be 1 in 100, 1 in 100,000, etc. If you get enough seed of these plants, you will likely get a plant, no matter how sterile it is. BUT, then we get to the next part about them not being true. Personally, I don't really care if the plants are as perfectly uniform as sailors in dress whites. In fact, I like a little movement -- a little taller, a little shorter is fine with me. I'm not too shot with the color being all crazy washed out or something, but generally, I'm not that picky because my garden doesn't look like the outside of an office park.
My 2nd question is: When you trade seeds, or send them into a swap or RR, who is responsible for knowing whether the seeds you are offering are hybrids? If you have the plant, collect what looks like seeds, offer them as "seed from" or "OP", are you doing enough to caution the person that they might not come true? That they might not even germinate? That what they get may germinate & grow, but not bloom? If you have these seeds, or receive these seeds, a germination test does not solve the problem. I have had plenty of seedlings from the same OP pack of seed do all kinds of different things, including growing but never blooming, and also having foliage that was 99% of the plant with wee little flowers at the top when there should have been huge clusters of flowers all around the plant. In those same packs have been perfectly wonderful plants with nice big clusters of flowers. You never know. But is it fair to send them out? What about sending them out to new people? How do you even determine if a person is a newbie? LOL!
Suzy
Seed that isn't seed, it just looks like it. :)
Hi Suzy,
Some answers to your question concerning seeds.
1. False seeds (they look like seeds but are empty so will not germinate: some species that (to my experience) produce lots of false seeds are Aster, Zinnia, Dahlia, Silphium, sunflowers and many others with daisy-like flowers. The fingernail check is a good one to find out whether a seed is empty or not. When it is, its color is usually lighter too. However, sometimes the seeds are too small to test and you'll have to take the risk. I never ever send out seeds I think are suspect!!!
2. Some seeds I trade come from hybrids I grew myself and the outcome will be uncertain. However, "older" hybrids often turn out surprisingly true. New F1 and F2 hybrids (hand pollinated by seed growers), on the other hand, will often not resemble the parent. Self-pollinating plants will crossbreed less. On my seed packets I always state as much information as possible about the plants, including name (if it's a hybrid the variation is put between " "), as well as height, colour, period of flowering and sowing instructions. Plus a picture of the mother plant. The rest is up to Mother Nature. For me (and lots of other gardeners too), that's the fun of sowing seeds. If you want to be absolutely sure, you'd better buy a plant at a nursery!