Re-hydrating seeds

[robg]

I was pursuing the topic of getting trillium seeds to germinate and found a reference in this forum to a NARGS paper by a US writer - John Gyer. 

He raises the point that the dried trillium seeds need re-hydrating but that it has to be done carefully to avoid the cell walls taking on moisture too fast and rupturing.  This seems quite logical and raises the question that perhaps this would apply to most dry seeds, and not just trillium ones. 

There will be clearly some seeds that do expect to dry out in nature and then get serious soaked; they no doubt have adapted to this.  And clearly where the recommendations are to soak, then seed sowers have clearly found this works. 

But it does raise the possibility that over enthusiasm to make the compost damp - possibly even wet ( ) - when sowing might be the source of many failed pots of seeds.

Any comments ?

Rob   

[aristoflora]

I know the problem very well - it's the same with almost all of our native European Aristolochia species. Wonderful plants, but if you want to grow them from seed (which is usually the only available form) it's better to gain experience with other plants before trying these 

[Gabriela]

It obviously depends very much on what type of seeds you are dealing with; in most cases the family they belong to may offer some clues. For ex. all that have impermeable seed coats would be very hard to 'over-hydrate', and so on....

I know the problem very well - it's the same with almost all of our native European Aristolochia species. Wonderful plants, but if you want to grow them from seed (which is usually the only available form) it's better to gain experience with other plants before trying these 

Last year I got two Aristolochia species seeds (that I didn't asked for) - anyway, they were extremely dry and of course I pursued at hydrating them... a lot! I never thought that they would germinate but they did - about 2-3 weeks ago. (A. iberica and A. steupii - I posted images in Germinating now).