Viability of Echinacea Seeds

16 years ago

I am still learning about seed collecting and have a question. I have collected seed from my Echinacea plants for some years and traded some only to find they did not germinate. Sometime this year, while discussing viability of seeds, I was told that to determine whether a seed was viable (or mature), roll it between my thumb and forefinger: mature seeds will be fine, but immature seeds will disintegrate. This seems to be true for hard coated seeds like Yvonne's Salvia, but I have just finished separating my Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' seeds, performed this little 'test', and find that most of them are disintegrating. We have had a particularly wet summer, and I did leave the heads on for quite a long time, but I have just read an article which says that what we trade as seeds, are really the 'fruit' and that the true seed is enclosed in the fruit. My question is: does this rolling the seeds between thumb and forefinger hold true for seeds like Echs.? Is the stuff that's disintegrating just the dried fruit or is it the seed? Are all these seeds duds? Your help is appreciated.

Northerner.

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Comments (4)

remy_gw
16 years ago
Hi Northern,
Yes it holds true. Good Echinacea seed are light brown and hard. I find a mix of good and bad echinacea seeds when separating them from the chaff. The link below is of a close up of echinacea seeds. The seed to the left is flat and definitely no good. There is also a similar bad one to the bottom right. As you can see they are sort of 4 sided and when good do not sink in.
The wet summer will not make the seeds go bad. It could however cause a lower amount of good seed because pollinators can not effectively do their job to cause seed development. For example if it rains a lot, butterflies who love echinacea, will not be out or only for brief times so pollen mixing is not going to occur.
I'm interested to know where you read the article because it doesn't make any sense. Some seeds are inside of fruit, but not all. Plus fruit rots and seeds do not so to say we are saving fruit is incorrect.
Remy

Here is a link that might be useful:
northerner_on
Original Author
16 years ago
Hi Remy: I almost sent this post to you because you seem to know a lot about seeds. Thanks for the reply. I just went through my history to find the article which I mentioned, but could not find it. It seemed to be from a university botany project. Anyway, your response makes sense. We had almost no butterflies this year. I grow Asclepias and this usually draws the Monarchs but none were seen this year - just a few cabbagewhites and a couple of painted ladies. The bee count was low as well so poor seed production could be expected. I will continue to do my 'thumb and forefinger roll test' because I want to trade the seeds from my Jade. I know they will come true because I grew these plants from seeds I took from a neighbour's plants. If I ever find that article I will send you a link. thanks again.
Northerner.
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remy_gw
16 years ago
Hi again Northerner,
You're welcome. I know a lot about some seeds, but the world of plants is huge. The more I know, the more vast it becomes, lol, and there are so so many I haven't a clue about!
Hopefully next year is nicer weather wise and lots of pollinators will be around. If it isn't, I recommend some hand pollination since you are really interested in these seeds. When it is nice and dry out, take a small paintbrush or qtip(anything small that will hold pollen) and brush each open flower. You could also just break off a couple flowers and lightly rub them on the other flowers, but I hate to lose my flowers that way. If you've got lots though, you won't notice a few missing ones.
Remy
northerner_on
Original Author
16 years ago
Now I know what the daughter-in-law of my friend in Vancouver was doing with the paintbrush and the pepper plant!! That's how she got it to fruit. All I know is my friend said that her DIL did 'something with a paintbrush'!! Now I'll know what to do the next time we have such a horrible summer. I may have to do it anyway because my yard has been taken over by some wild cats, which keep birds away. Last year, we trapped 9 of them and took them to the Humane Society. We missed a couple and at least four more 'babies' were born under our shed this summer.
The bad news is I've finished cleaning my Jade seeds and everyone is a dud. What a shame. There's always next year.