Hulthemia persica Seeds! (Part 1)

Last April I received the most amazing gift - Hulthemia persica seeds from Iran!  They came to me by way of Dr. David Byrne of Texas A&M University.  The seeds were brought to the U.S. by doctoral candidate Mahnaz Kiani.  She is working on a genomics project on sorghum with Dr. Patricia Klein.

Since it was already after my usual planting time and having already had experience germinating 'Tigris' seeds that were more than a year old, I thought that it would be prudent to put the envelop containing the blackened seed pods into the refrigerator for safekeeping until I could plant the seeds along with my rose seeds in 2014.

This is what the contents looked like when I opened the clear plastic bag last November.

The hips looked almost like they had been scorched and were completely dry and crispy. It made me wonder whether any of the seeds would be viable.

Seen close-up below, you can imagine how "unfriendly" the hips were.  I had to be careful removing the seeds so as not to puncture my fingers!

I noticed that unlike rose seeds, Hulthemia persica seeds were more uniform in shape and size.  Additionally, the seed covers appeared rather smooth.  Approximately 20 hips yielded 119 seeds.  73 of these seeds were placed in a damp paper towel and returned to the refrigerator in a zip-lock bag for further cold stratification.

The story will continue…..