They are indeed tiny straight black sticks. I would say that those do sound like the seeds.

I believe there's two 'sticks', and one is often mistaken for the seed. If you see two different sized sticks, the smaller, darker, splinter looking 'sticks' are the seeds, not the longer lighter 'sticks'.

Right. There are the spikes and the shorter seed. Sometimes on Ruds, the seed is more of a gray and the spikes are more black. I think Tracey's characterization of "splinter" really says it best.

I sow my ruds chaff and all, but some are picky about that. If you plan to trade or share, that's something you might want to consider. I run a disclaimer on my Word list that states that all my Ruds have chaff. That way, we are all on the same page.

I'm with bakemom; if you don't have the time to separate the chaff, simply mark it on your trade page. Chaff never bothers me, but some people are dead set against receiving it. Most seeds are simple to separate from the chaff, but of course, there's plenty that would take you a month to separate, and that's after you've ripped every hair out of your head. I've received a bunch with chaff, although it was never stated upfront, which still, never did bother me. But, a few times, I was a bit pissed; I received chaff with no seed!

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