A tomentosa seeds are triangular, brown, and very thin. They don't look they could possibly be viable. But they are and they do come up. The plants have heart shaped leaves. Yours sound like A tomentosa.

I winter-sowed A. tomentosa from seed in winter 2008. The seeds are indeed triangular, brown, and flat, about 1/4 - 3/8 inch across. They have papery edges. They sprouted very well and are small plants now. I was worried about their hardiness in this zone, but the plants made it through a zone 5 winter.

Sandy, Thank you very much for your description of the seeds. That sounds exactly what mine look like! That's a relief to know that it's what I have. You're right about them not looking like they could be viable. I never saw seeds like them before; if I hadn't been told that they are seeds and had just seen them lying somewhere, I'd probably have thrown them away thinking they were junk. The seeds came up fine for me. I also planted some Virginia Snakeroot, but those containers don't have any signs of life yet, but I'm hoping for the best. I also have A. macrophylla. I'm determined to get the Pipevine Swallowtail here someday; it hasn't yet been reported for my county. I think it's a beautiful butterfly, judging from pictures I've seen of it. If you'd like to see where I read about the tubular seed description, I've included the link to the website.

Terrene, I appreciate your description, and like I told Sandy, your description fits the seeds that were given to me. I usually take for granted that what people send me is what they say it is, but then when I read the description of the seed on the website I was on reading about A. tomentosa (I'll include the link below for you to read if you'd like...it's not a lot to read) and it didn't sound like these at all, it got me to thinking that the person might have mislabeled their seeds by accident. I'm glad to find out that they are what I wanted. It's also good to know that the plants made it through your zone 5 winter. Since I'm in zone 6, I guess I shouldn't have a problem with them then. Thanks again.

Now I hope that the plants will be okay on the "trellis" that I'm putting up for them. I bought a 50-ft roll of wire fencing at Lowe's for this purpose. I'm going to cut three 16-ft pieces, make each into a big circle with an approximate 5-ft diameter, and stack each circle on top of each other. The total height would be 12 feet, so I'm hoping that's tall enough considering I've read that the vine gets 20-30 feet long. This is the best setup that I can come up with for them.
Cathy

Here is a link that might be useful: Aristolochia tomentosa