Peony Seeds

Barbara, I can only comment in part by mentioning that peony seeds that stay red rather than turning black are apparently ones that are not fertile.

Oh dear, one great gardener tells me I should wait until the seeds turn red, and another tells me that only black peaonia seeds are fertile. My 'Molly the Witch' seeds are almost black. I guess I will let the rest ripen longer in the pods.

Now, can anyone tell me how to start a new thread? Seed saving, maybe?
Barbara van Achterberg

http://canadianpeonysociety.blogspot.com/p/peony-questions-answered.html

There is some info on red vs. black peony seeds at the attached link.

Wow, spectacular picture, Alice!  The seedpods won't be opening for some time yet here... actually, I still have peonies in bloom!

Lori wrote:

Wow, spectacular picture, Alice!  The seedpods won't be opening for some time yet here... actually, I still have peonies in bloom!

Peonies here have just barely opened, and some have not fully yet!

I just found a statement in print (The Perfect Plant by David Joyce)that answers my question about when to gather seeds of Paeonia Mlokosewitschii. "A surprise in autumn is the combination of scarlet and glossy black when the seedpods split open." So I will wait till fall to harvest the remaining seeds.

Oh, was that your question?  Sorry, I didn't pick up on what you were actually asking about... my apologies.  Yes, for any peony, wait until the seed pod opens on its own.  Then, pick the dark seeds (which are the ones that were fertilized).

Hmm, I was recently given some seedpods from a fernleaf peony.. all I see are some small med brown seeds.. does this mean those would be all sterile seeds?

And to add to Peter's helpful photo, the round dark seeds are the viable ones. (There are also some nonfertile red seeds in the photo.)

How large is what is shown in the photo? Nothing I received looks like any part of that image-- no red, no blue/black, no green, and not wide open..
What I got is some semi-woody partly open, slightly fuzzy brownish capsules with small brown seeds (??)... time for google, I guess...

This in fact looks much more like what I have, though mine is dried..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/horticultural_art/3436605256/

Peter wrote:

The seeds in my photo are about the size of wild blueberries. The seeds in your picture are non-viable.

Thanks, Peter; its not my photo, its from Flickr; so the fernleaf should have similar seeds to the other peonies? The picture on Flickr shows a fresher seedpod (still green) unlike the dried ones I have, but there is still nothing resembling the red things in your photo....?

I agree with Peter that those are nonfertile seeds in the linked photo.  My double-flowered fern-leaf peony produces only non-viable seeds that look, at best, like the linked photo (though the pods in the photo are also green and immature).  Viable peony seeds are rounded in shape and dark in colour.  

Halda (The Genus Paeonia) states that peony seeds are brown to black, smooth and relatively large, and that seeds of P. tenuifolia, specifically, are cylindrical in shape and 4mm x 8mm.  

Examples:
Here's a pod of Paeonia veitchii, which opened on its own and contains one viable seed:

Here's a couple of barely-opened pods on P. mlokosewitchii, which contain only unfertilized seeds:

Here's a pod of P. officinalis, which I popped open prematurely, which contains dark fertilized seeds, and red unfertilized seeds:

For scale (millimeters), here is a fertile P. officinalis seed on left and a dried fertile seed of P. veitchii on the right:

This is a really interesting and useful thread.  It would be good to have more pictures of seeds on the Forum.  There is not much info on the web and it is often unreliable.

In an article in the Rock Garden Quarterly a while back Kristl Walek advised " Know your seed".  Thats all very well but what if you don't know every seed - there is an amazing variety of seed types among species.

I agree with David--some interesting images :)
Someone on ColdZone Yahoo group posted an interesting picture of several types of Peony seed side by side.. the fernleaf seeds are much smaller than the herbaceous cultivar seeds, and they are not at all round, cylindrical would be a better word-- or almost like a fat watermelon seed (I've asked if I can share the photo).. they are certainly black, though...
So would the fernleaf (tenuifolia? really I know nothing about peonies!) have had those pink or red non-viable seeds at some stage? None in the unripe photo I linked to, and certainly none in the dried pods I have

I think there was some kind of seed pods on one or another of our peonies in some past year (didn't pay much attention -no interest in those cultivars/hybrids) but this year all any of them have is big clumps of dead petals...lol.. it was so cold and wet this summer, most of the flowers didn't even fully open..

Halda shows a line drawing comparing various Paeonia seeds (page 31, if you have access to the book, or try here: http://www.amazon.com/Genus-Paeonia-Josef-J-Halda/dp/0881926124 ).

The seeds of P. tenuifolia are shown as rounded oblongs - not literally cylindrical, but longer than they are wide, hence "cylindrical" - not at all shaped like a watermelon seed, though.  If the seeds in the photo you refer to on the other forum are watermelon seed-shaped, I'd assume they are dried, undeveloped, non-fertile seeds*.

*EDIT:  Note - only an assumption on my part!  I only have a double-flowered fern-leaf peony, which doesn't produce viable seeds at all, so I am only guessing from Halda's work.

Lori-- here's the pic, a matter of description, I suppose, so the image is better than the telling-- I said like a fat watermelon seed, (which I would still say ;) and no they do  not appear to be dry or infertile seeds)-- by which I meant not flat and nothing like the round ones, so cylindrical is still not a bad description..
Here's the comment from the photographer/grower:

These are all peony seeds, the yellow are immature seeds from a herbaceous cultivar, just for size and shape comparison.
Clockwise from the yellow, the 2 seeds by themselves are from a peony which has the fernleaf peony as one parent, the next group is from P.anomala (Ural peony) and the smallest seeds in the bottom right corner are from the fernleaf peony. I have germinated seeds that are this size from the fernleaf peony, so I'm quite sure this is what they're s'posed to look like.
from Barb Adams Eichendorf in Saskatchewan

No peony books here, and this is probably the only time I would have need of one...lol.. speaking of which, if the seeds are fleshy, as they appear, do they need to be sown immediately, or can they be stored/sold commercially?

One year later...Well, here it is July 31, 2012 and yesterday I collected my first seedpod off that Paeonia mlokosowitschii. It has the larger black berries with the little red ones around them. Some of the red ones were already falling onto the ground.  I am thinking that I should let them dry in a paper cup and then take the seeds out of the black berries. How many will there be in each fleshy berry? And how soon should I refrigerate them?
There are several more pods that have not opened yet. I will watch them but not rush them.

Last year I never got any more seeds after the shriveled seed I collected too early in the summer

All the peony seeds which I received from the Exchange are a dark almost black.
I have been soaking them in hydrogen peroxide solution for several days.
I did nick them,but some are still floating.  They all seem hard and heavy.
So I am going to place them all in moist vermiculite and place them in a warm spot.

I have tried wintersowing peony seeds---but no luck so far-----
I have kept the jugs,--- and perhaps I may be surprised come spring. :o :o :o

My plan is three months warm, one month moderate, three months in 'frig.

As Gordon alluded to in his post above, it might be useful to mention that the seeds of many Paeonia have hypogeal germination (see Deno's Seed Germination Theory and Practice). In other words, the seed produces a root (radical) at the initial stage of germination, but growth of the above-ground seedling (cotyledon) is delayed. 

I haven't grown Paeonia from seed (or at least not successfully  :rolleyes:) but in light of the above, it seems like it might be a good idea to dig up the seeds and check for germination before giving up?  It could be that the seed has germinated but one might think it has not, if the cotyledon is not yet visible.

Here's a photo of some self-sown Paeonia officinalis seedlings (dug up to move elsewhere) that show hypogeal germination, with the seed still attached:

Now that is encouraging!
I am wondering about the info above that old seeds germinate less readily.
Deno suggests otherwise?  Well--- that one year of dry storage improves germination?
Dr. Deno also suggests that GA-3 may help?
Any thoughts on that?

CScott wrote:

I am wondering about the info above that old seeds germinate less readily.
Deno suggests otherwise?  Well--- that one year of dry storage improves germination?

I think it comes down to planting them and finding out... If you have enough seeds of the same kind, you could try GA-3 on one batch and compare with the other batch?

Not specific to peonies, but I think a lot of seed behavior is much more species-dependent than one would guess - that different species within a genus may act differently, and so even categorizing behavior by the genus may often be too broad - and Deno's work found lots of example of that.   
He also found that dry storage of seeds of certain species (again not necessarily specific to peonies) actually enhances germination by breaking down germination inhibitors, which goes against the sweeping statements that one often hears or reads about the uselessness of "old seeds".  Fascinating stuff.

Yes, I've seen that too...  tomato seeds have terrific longevity!