Hi ProudGM,
I assume you are talking about Tithonia. I found a pic! The seeds sort of remind me of bugs, lol. They are fairly large and arrowhead shaped and can vary in color. Sometimes they can even be striped. They are found in the base of the flowers. So shape and location wise, they are similar to zinnia seed.
Remy

Here is a link that might be useful: Tithonia seed with petals still attached

Mexican sunflower is in the asteraceae family like black eyed susans, zinnias, cosmos, daisies and similar plants so you can find the seeds in the same place where you find seeds on them. Asteraceae flowers make lots of seeds and they grow in cone-like seed heads. Regular sunflowers and marigolds are also asteraceae but their seed head are more extreme than most of the plants in the family.

They should be tucked down in the seed head right in the flower center, and if the seed head is nice and dry you should be able to nudge them loose by turning the seed head upside down and tapping it or scraping on the seed head area a bit. If you scrape hard you will probably also get the chaff that held the seeds in place and that's a similar shape to the seed.

Hope that helps. In general, if a flower looks like something a kid would just call a daisy, it's probably in the asteraceae family and seeds are right there tucked into the seed cone.

Lynda

Thanks for the info guys!

I always get pricked when gathering tithonia or echinacea seeds. I found a tip on a site somewhere that recommended soaking the dried seedheads in water overnight to soften them. Then you can pull apart the seedheads without drawing blood. It really works!

One other thing I've found with tithonia--if it makes a sharp, tapping sound when it drops against the plate (I pick seeds on my everyday china), it's mature. If it makes a softer tap, then it's not ready.

Diana Lynn

I read somewhere that tithonia seeds have a higher germination the second year - has anyone else heard that? I have a lot of them left over from last summer and didn't know whether to throw them out, so I looked them up on the internet and saw several posts about them germinating better the second year.

Becky