I have a question regarding the outer shell/husk on these seeds. I bought three packets of these from Banana-tree and immediately soaked them all in hot water. Most, if not all of them are floating. I found a question in the archives where another user had this problem. He was advised to remove the outer shell. I did this on one seed and it's still floating. My question is, are there two outer shells on these things? I shook the seed (after removing the outer shell) and can hear something hard rattling around in there. Is THAT the actual seed, that I'm hearing, or am I damaging something I shouldn't be? I've done a lot of internet research, and haven't been able to find any detailed information about this, so any help you guys can provide is greatly appreciated. I'm really hoping the entire batch of seeds isn't a total loss. It took quite a while to get them.

Thank you!!!

Tree_girl

Thank you both for the input. I'll try breaking the "second" shell and see what happens...and I'll scarify them all as well. Thanks for your help. I'll keep you posted...

I agree. Actually, I didn't scarify them, but I DID discover that there are indeed two outer shells. The first is dark, and the second is lighter and fibrous-looking; kind of reminded me of a coconut. The actual seed is dark, like the 1st shell.
Anyway, after removing both shells, I didn't think I needed to do anything else to them. Kind of seemed like overkill at that point. ;)
I potted them in a seed starting soil/sand mixture (more sand than soil), so I'll see how it goes.

Thanks again for your help. I haven't had much luck growing things from seed up to now, so this is an experiment for me.