| I've had similar failures trying to germinate Abronia villosa, a desert annual with pinkish-purple flowers. I don't know if what I later read regarding A. villosa will work for you but I'll pass it on anyway. A local desert writer stated that A. villosa seeds have to be ingested by animals where they are subjected to stomach acid which burns off the germination inhibitors. When they are expelled in the animal's excreta, they are ready to imbibe water and germinate. I don't have any willing animals and neither did the writer. She suggests soaking the seeds briefly in hydrochloric acid until the "wings" are burned off and the seed coat starts to turn black. Too much soaking will kill the seed. So will too high a concentration of HCl. I don't know where you can buy HCl. Maybe through a chemical supply house that sells to high school and college laboratories. Possibly other household acids might work, especially if you concentrate them by boiling off some of the water content. For example, citric acid (lemon juice), acetic acid (vinegar). Gibberelic acid (GA3) might also work. This is used by many serious gardeners to germinate seeds with resistent inhibitors. You should be able to find GA3 through a Google search on the web. A treatment I just read about is subjecting certain seeds to smoke to simulate fire conditions in the seed species' natural environment. Instead of lighting a fire, the suggestion is to use bottled "liquid smoke" in hot water, soaking the seeds in that solution for "X" amount of time. Abronia fragrans is a fragrant, lovely perennial of the Colorado Plateau desert. It grows in loose sand in full sun and is rarely covered by snow or rained on. If you can get your seeds to germinate, you may have a difficult time growing the plant successfully in NY. Hope some this will be helpful. | 
