Patience. Your method needs patience. Nothing happens when you want it to ... or all at once. Speckles on the seed shell may be caused naturally by them being wetted internally and the seed store beginning to be utilized by the embryo. All my Canna seeds eventually came up. Canna are extremely hardy plants and although they may take time to germinate, they eventually will. And if they don't. Who cares? The ones that did germinate can be divided later to obtain just as many and more Canna. You only need one to germinate to get lots of them!

Before I face censure from the forum I shall out myself on a few points and offer an explanation. 1.) Yes these are self-watering pots. No I am not planning on using them as such. They were the smallest and cheapest I could find at the stores I checked. 2.) This is common potting soil, Miracle grow, that I had leftover after filling the flower baskets from this past spring. I have tried a variant of the gritty mix in the past for houseplants but found that when i have to work more I don't have the time to tend the plants and respond to their needs as often. This led to the plants suffering and seeming to be chronically dry and wilting. Over watering has not been a problem for me in the past (aside from a poor and very fussy departed ming aralia) and the fact that the soil holds water works for my home/work lifestyle. If the soil has gotten exceptionally dry then I place my plants in the sink and let a slow drip slowly saturate the soil. 3.) The pot diameter may be a bit too large for the seedlings right now. Again, these were the cheapest and smallest I could find at this time. It was important to me that all of the pots were the same. I'm sure that this will mean careful monitoring of the soil moisture until the roots and plants have grown some.

I recently purchased a large quantity of cleaned, Coccoloba uvifera-"SEA GRAPE" seed. I carefully cracked a few open and found that the three-sided kernel was dried out and not at all fleshy. The seeds looked dry, and if I were to guess, I would say that the seeds were not harvested recently, but stored. How long....who knows? This is just a guess on my part. I do not know what a fresh seed looks like when cracked open, but I expected to see something like the fleshy, moist, kernel of a Ginkgo nut, or an acorn, but instead, the kernels had the texture like a Almond, and easily crumbled. The thin shells could be cracked very easily and I was able to remove all the little 1/4" kernels intact. I then soaked them in warm water for 24 hours, and they swelled up to twice the original size. I plan on sowing them in damp coconut coir, with some bottom heat. I've read all the information I could find for growing these seeds, but no sources ever mention what the fresh seeds look like when the thin shells are cracked open, and none mention cracking the thin shells to expose the inside kernels to moisture. They say to "scarify" the seeds, and sow. Scarification just gets moisture to the seed kernels quicker. I bypassed this step by removing the seed kernels first. I guess the germinated seeds would just push open the outer capsule, and strike roots. My concern is that I have seeds that are no longer viable because they were dried out. If this is the case, all my efforts were for nothing, because the seeds were delivered dead. Has anyone had extensive experiences growing this plant from seed? I know they grow all over Florida, and the seeds spring up where they drop. But that's in Florida, and that's fresh seed. I live in NYC, and must rely on mail order for tropical seeds, so my sowing/growing conditions are a bit different from the native habitat...to say the least. If anyone can give me their opinions, suggestions, I would greatly appreciate the help. Thanks. BronxFigs

Yes, I think if you put a paper bag over the seed head just before the seeds mature you should collect at least a few. Tie the inverted bag neck reasonably tightly. Out of curiosity I looked up propagation of this species & it seems best germination results are obtained with commercial smoke water so it suggests it regenerates well after bush fire. Germination can also occur if the seeds are soaked in water for eight hours prior to sowing. See www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/interns-2012/doryanthes-palmeri.html.