Oncocyclus Iris 2014

[penstemon]

Link with good pictures showing what to do. http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=6450.0

The purpose of this type of forced germination is to remove the micropylar barrier which prevents the embryo from emerging. Nature does this, too, but takes forever to do it.
In essence, you are slicing off a tiny (1mm or less) portion of the root of the embryo.

[penstemon]

Someone told me that oncocyclus iris seeds were readily available. I don't think that's true.
But I was given quite a bit of seed recently. It will be interesting to see if it's viable. Most of it was collected in the wild in the late 1960s to mid-1970s.
Soaking them right now.

[penstemon]

Oh, well. After soaking the seed, I cut into seeds of several species, and they're not viable. Maybe forty-five years of storage was too much for them. I suppose if they had been frozen, different story.
You never know until you try.

[Chris Johnson]

Oh, well. After soaking the seed, I cut into seeds of several species, and they're not viable. Maybe forty-five years of storage was too much for them. I suppose if they had been frozen, different story.
You never know until you try.

Pity; great jars though (pepper pots?). Are they the same vintage?

[penstemon]

Those are salt shakers, vintage 2013, from Amazon. Purchased expressly for soaking oncocyclus seeds. I figured after the disinfecting process, the shakers would make it easier to change the water daily, since I envisioned seeds going right down the drain with any other method.

[Chris Johnson]

Those are salt shakers, vintage 2013, from Amazon. Purchased expressly for soaking oncocyclus seeds. I figured after the disinfecting process, the shakers would make it easier to change the water daily, since I envisioned seeds going right down the drain with any other method.

Clever idea, Bob ... found the very item via Google, a US product.

[penstemon]

About the only good idea to have emerged from yours truly in quite a while. ....
The strange thing, now, is that, with the ancient seeds having died, I returned to the first batch of seeds I received, and now the remaining seeds, from packets I just sowed last week and which are now germinating, are also dead.
I'm soaking the rest of the seeds from the first batch, seeds about five years old, just to make sure there isn't some force field around the house which is killing the seeds. Or a curse.
I do admit that I have the power to kill a plant just by looking at it.

[Chris Johnson]

I do admit that I have the power to kill a plant just by looking at it.

Scary, Bob. It must be nice to have so much seed to kill. 

[penstemon]

It's not terrible, though I notice for the first time in a quarter century that I'm running out of pots. The BEF polypropylene Grower's Pots are the best I've ever used, and have been left outside for that many years.
Still, if anyone felt like sending me some dionysia seed, I'd find pots for them ....
That's one of the frustrating things about gardening over here; so many plants are difficult to impossible to acquire. I can get 3000 kinds of hostas or daylilies, though, if I wanted them.