I haven't personally tried growing the seeds I have, but I have heard of an easy method that seems to work, if you can't find smoke pads (if you can locate them, they are often quite cheap - a 4-inch disk costs maybe 75 cents and is good for a couple of cups of water, which can contain quite a lot of seeds): If you go to a store that has cooking ingredients (I found it in Safeway), get a bottle of liquid smoke. Those are made from real smoke diluted in water, and supposedly work really well - plus you have a bottle of lovely smoke-flavouring for your cooking. The source I got this tip from didn't mention if mesquite or hickory is better, although I rather like the taste of hickory... :)

Well, it's not a plant that I personally grow, but I have a dried protea flower head from a floral arrangement and it's full of seeds. I'm not going to plant them. The flower head I got the seeds from looks nearly identical to this: http://www.uni-bonn.de/Aktuelles/Presseinformationen/2004/236/bilder/protea.jpg Proteas are South African natives, but grow a lot in Australia as well. They're fairly large shrubs when mature. The flowers are so specacular! Amanda 'romando' Here is a link that might be useful:

I should watch this thread more closely as there are so few of us who share the common interest of Proteas for the Pacific Northwest, and I would hate to lose touch! The South Island of New Zealand has a Protea Growers Association of 60+ members; I think we'd be lucky to get five around here. Iyou - I think there's hope. I heard from a guy in the Grants Pass, Oregon area that Banksia repens survived the big freeze last December (bottoming at 12F for him) without a scratch with only a bucket over it for protection. This species from Western Australia does not even come from an area of severe cold yet it seems at least as hardy as any of the eastern Australian Banksias from the Snowy Mountains. I know that doesn't really prove anything in itself, but I like to think that if one compares Banksias to the Protea situation in South Africa, I can be optimistic that some of the more obscure high altitude Cape species (for example, recondita, venusta, cryophila, humiflora, witzenbergiana) might be hardy enough for us. So far I have recently planted seed of P. venusta and P. humiflora, but humiflora hasn't germinated - perhaps they will come up in the fall. Venusta has produced seven seedlings so far. I'm expecting some variation among the plants so I plan to keep them all and compare their ornamental qualities before propagating them to test for cold hardiness outdoors and to sell. I also just got some seed of P. effusa which is another exciting, obscure high altitude Cape Species. That's interesting to hear about P. caffra thriving on clay - thanks for mentioning it! Still, the Drakensberg is so dry in winter that many plants from there will grow in Denver but not Seattle - I bet clay soil with heaps of winter rain and the occasional Northwest Arctic blast will be an unworkable combo. My idea is to someday build raised beds about 2' tall and bring in a soil mix. I was thinking of using something like 2 parts sand, 2 parts red lava rock and 1 part compost for the Cape species, though I really don't know how that will work out (perhaps I'll try it in a smaller area first) and compare the results in that raised bed with plants planted directly into the native soil (a loam/rocks mix). I'm just full of ideas... LOL. If you know of any Leucadendrons that actually survived last winter in Portland without freezing to the ground, I'd love to hear about them. My experience with the more readily obtainable cultivars (which are mostly of L. salignum and L. laureolum parentage) is that they invariably die in our climate below about 20-24F. A lot of them are certainly hardy through our mild winters, so perhaps I can get these hybrids to put on some size before a cold winter puts them to the test.

Well, if they KNOW they're going extinct, I hope they are trying to save them! I suppose they mean extinct in the wild, but still, it seems there would be a concerted effort.