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farmerbell

seeds on crossandra

farmerbell
17 years ago

I have been growing crossandra for 2 summers and I can never find seeds after the flowers have turned brown, etc. What am I missing? Does it form seeds and if so, where are they? Thanks, Ann

Comments (6)

  • idic
    17 years ago

    I was doing a search for the same info and came across your post. I thought that the seeds were in the dried pods but now I'm not sure. Did you ever find out?
    Any help would be appreciated.
    Thanks,
    Cindy

  • dorne
    10 years ago

    I was watering a waist level high, plant trough and when the hose sprinkled water on the Crossandra plant, suddenly a seed shot out with a crack sound and hit me on the cheek. Then another 'crack' sound and a second seed went flying off somewhere. Now I know why they call them 'firecracker'. The seed that hit my cheek was at quite some velocity, it stung for a second. I mention this to let you know that the seeds are shot out so hard and with a loud 'crack' sound, they must go a heck of a distance. Interestingly, there were only 2 brown 'parts', at the bottom of the seed 'sprig', the rest were still green. Therefore, not the whole seed sprig needs to turn brown before dispatching the seed, they dispatch as soon as brown.

    What I find strange is that when I get crassandra seed from suppliers it is small, flat and an oatmeal colour. In fact looks similar to a bit of oatmeal. But, when I collect the seed from my plants and with photo's ive seen on the internet the seed is like brown rice.

    Not wanting to risk rainfall and losing the seed I have picked some complete 'sprigs', mostly still green, from plants and left them to dry and go brown inside my home. Today ive planted some (looking like brown rice) so its fingers crossed as to what happens next.

  • dorne
    10 years ago

    this is an update on my previous posting... he he he.. great.. now I know.
    O.K. so before I got as far as sowing the little hard rice looking 'grains/seeds' but was confused that when I receive an order of crossandra seeds they were more like little bits of oatmeal... not brown rice shaped.

    Today, knowing they give off a loud crack and send their seed a great distance when they get wet, I put some of the brown ripe part of the 'sprig' into a plastic box, added water and put the lid on quickly. Within about 20 seconds they started their loud cracking noise telling me they were releasing the seed. After a few minuits I removed the lid and with a fork removed the floating 'chaff'.
    The chaff floats.. the seeds sink, and there they were all at the bottom of the plastic box. Now these looked exactly like those you would buy from a supplier, small oatmeal type seeds. The seeds and remaining water I put into a fine nylon sieve and left them there to dry.

    Now I will sow some of them and see what happens.

  • Gina Mulder
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    According to a video on you tube, the orange crossandra produces false seeds, the reddish orange one produces the seeds , thus called the fire cracker because you hear them pop. The best way we have found to propagate is from cuttings with rooting hormone, we had great success with this method. After that video , I realized why we never had luck with seeding.

  • doctortooth1
    7 months ago

    Gina, any updates on your Crossandra journey? Can you cookbook the cuttings foray if you've been successful? I cant get my orange Crossandra seeds to germinate either. What month did you take the cuttings?

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