Armeria seed

[Linda_Foulis]

Is there a difference in the seed between armeria maritima and armeria alpina?? I assumed that all armeria seed resembled little badminton birdies but the a. alpina seed I just purchased does not look like that at all.  Small brownish red seeds, oval, hard, is what I received.  Can anyone confirm this for me?

Thank you,
Linda

[David Shaw]

I understood that A. alpina is a ssp of A. maritima therefore, I would expect the seed to be identical to the ordinary gardeners eye, such as mine.

[Maggi Young]

These two websites may be of assistance to study for this and other "seedy" questions.
The sites are :  http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~seedbio/seed_id/index.html

and this excellent british site, which a forumist told us of in the old forum pages, as I recall :
www.theseedsite.co.uk

[SueG]

Hi Linda
I know nothing about armeria seed, but I know someone who does - she's rapidly getting a real collection together, I'll ask her to look at your query and will feed the info back
Sue

[ChrisB]

Dear Linda,

SueG emailed me about your question.  I am just beginning to learn about armeria and have several species in the form of plants already.  But there are loads to get yet!!!  Anyhow, to answer your question, I have sown all of the seed dist by SRGC, some has germinated, others have not.  All had the badminton birdies on them when I sowed them.  However, some I purchased from T&M were also sown and had no such birdies, they were just little brown American football shaped seeds.  The latter germinated much faster than any of the other seed.  One site I visited suggested (forgotten which one) that if one wanted to go to the trouble of removing the birdies and other bits, the seed would provide 95% germination.  I think the point has been proven if you look at what I achieved with A. 'Bees' Hybrids as compared to all the other seed I have sown at the same time.  But who has that amount of patience?  The most interesting thing I have found is that the seeds germinate so that the little birdies act like an umbrella above the germinating stem that holds the cotyledons, so it looks a bit prehistoric with all these little umbrellas rising from the soil.  Magic!

[Linda_Foulis]

Well, thank you for that info.  Right you are!  I just peeled an armeria maritima seed and sure enough inside is that little 'brown American football' (ha ha) shaped seed.  The seed I had originally questioned did indeed sprout quite readily, within days of sowing.  I've never had great germination from unpeeled armeria seed, I will try it on some of my own seed and see what kind of results I get.  How exciting!

[ChrisB]

Hi Linda,  I've been away a few days and just read your response.  I've managed to get some more seed but find it very difficult to remove the outer parts without peeling the seed itself.  The seed houses must have some sort of machine to get it off I reckon.  Most of the seed I've germinated has not had its shell removed and still germinated just fine.  I'm finding that the A. juniperifolia types are not germinating yet.  Whether they need some other sort of treatment I'm not sure, but the seeds are too tiny to do anything other than just sow them and hope for the best.  I may try putting them in the fridge (will have to disguise this or HWMBO will have something to say about it I'm sure.  Still, not as bad as my mother who used to regularly store her maggots for fishing in the fridge! lol