Questions about seeds from hot and dry summer areas
Jane McGary (Wed, 18 Jun 2003 09:31:51 PDT)

John Lonsdale asked,

They would get VERY dry if they just lay on the open ground, of course, but
many Western American geophytes seem to disperse their seed (e.g., by
"tumbleweed" inflorescences) so that it will blow into crevices, where
presumably the seed would sift down and be somewhat protected from drying
as well as from seed-eating birds and animals. Also, some seeds probably
get covered by drying grass and other foliage and in a sense mulched. I
think ants carry a lot of them off underground, where they eat
non-reproductive structures of the seed and it then germinates (this is
especially noticeable in Trillium ovatum).

Josef Halda once told me that pots of Eremurus seed, which take 2 or more
years to germinate, should not be watered in summer. I have also withheld
summer water from some xeric Chilean seeds. I do this by putting them in
the dry portion of the bulb frame or somewhere else with dormant bulbs that
I don't water.

I do think a lot of Mediterranean-cycle seeds germinate better if stored
dry at room temperature from the time they are harvested until they are
planted in fall.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon