Your pods are fine. As they dry they will get lighter and eventually start to crack open. If you don't want the seeds to fall out you can wrap the pod in a fine mesh, or keep checking them and harvest just as they start to open. The seeds will be smooth and pale brown at first but will dry dark and wrinkly like the ones in your picture. As long as they have some thickness to them I think they can sprout - nothing ventured... Plant them 1 inch deep in pots and leave outside all winter, they should sprout in early spring. I have had some luck with pods which were broken off before they had a chance to mature, so don't worry. Chad

It's quite easy. Boil water, pour water in a mug or cup, and place seeds in very hot water, and allow seeds to soak overnight. Seeds will germinated close to 100% within a week when sown in potting mix. This method works with almost any pea family member including Cercis, Baptisia, Thermopsis, Indigofera, etc.

I'm in south puget sound area the pacific northwest (US). We had a particulary bad bout of spider mites and powdery mildew late this summer. Pretty frustrating. Anyways, I still have poppies blooming. I started some in april and a second planting in june. Some of the june ones bloomed by august; others are just starting. Late summer was unusually dry here. Then we started getting our usualy cool, grey and wet weather in late september. A couple of my pods which were just about ready to harvest for seed started turning green again so I pulled them and viola! all the seeds were fully germinated! Darn!! My first Hen and Chicks plant bloomed in early september. I only got two flowers from a single plant, so I really didn't want to mess up the only seeds. I brought this plant, which was in a pot, onto my enclosed back porch. Unfortunately, the plants aren't getting enough light for the younger pods to develop. I have no supplemental light source, so I had to choose to keep the HnC pods dry. Does anyone have any hints on how to deal with late season poppies in the pac northwest?

For the Leptospernum, I had a general id idea, so I wanted to check which trees were commonly grown in Santa Monica. I just googled 'Santa Monica street trees' --the PDF was #2 on the resulting list.