Balloon Flower Seeds & Rudbeckia Hirta Seeds

When do I harvest these? My balloon flower has had seed pods on it for a good month, but they're still green and when opened, they're very wet still.

First year for Rudbeckia and I have no idea what I'm even looking for when it comes to seeds for that. Any and all help appreciated!

Stephanie

No experience with the balloon flowers, but all seeds should be mature- dry and brown pods-before collecting.

The rudbeckia seeds are in the cone. After the flower dies and dries, petals will drop, leaving only a dried up cone. If you hold it upside down after well dried, run your fingers over the cone and seeds looking like little black splinters will fall out.

Karen

or you can remove the rudbeckia seeds by cutting the cone in half lengthwise after it is pretty well dry. Flick it with your finger over a paper plate. Some will be chaff, but the slightly thicker stuff is the seed.
It takes a while for the balloon flower pods to dry.The seeds are inside the pod and are I believe black and round. You can cut the tip off when completely dry and shake the seeds out.

This is a scanned cone showing the black seeds still in the cone.The black semi circle of the halved cone shows the black seeds still attached. When ripe they will easily fall loose when flicked with the finger.
I hope the picture shows it clearly enough.

Windy! That's the visual I needed! Thank you so much! Had no idea they were INSIDE the cone. Very interesting!

How dry does the cone need to be before I harvest the seeds? Do I need to let all the brown stuff (chaff) on the outside fall off before harvesting?

I find that the cone starts to become more looser and is easier to separate. Finches usually start picking at them and pulling at the cone here so you may want to keep an eye on them.
For example, the cone in the picture had to be cut open and if it were ripe you could pull it apart more easily.
I wish it were easier to explain, sorry.
The cone will still be brown, but not as deep of a brown color, sort of faded.
Hope that helps.
You will still have the looser lighter chaff and what I do is place the seeds in a coffee filter and tap it. The heavier seed will go to the bottme. It won't hurt to have some chaff.
When you plant the seed in the fall, do not cover it. Just push it onto the soil so it makes contact. It needs light to germinate.

The seeds look like little black splinters.

http://www.frsa.org/Seedimages/Plate6.pdf

Karen

The seeds in the pictures are of course magnified. But the balsamina impatiens look nothing like the round hard seeds that pop out of my pods.Wonder if someone saved the popping pods on that one when they were immature.