Echinacea Purpura Magnus seeds

I have just started my garden, and had (only) one flower on my new coneflowers. The cone had dried out on the plant and I have brought it inside to try and save the seeds, except this is the first time I have ever done this...
All the bits on the cone came off fairly easily, but now I have no idea which parts are the seeds - none of it looks like the seeds in the PDB for plain E.Purpura. I've tried to separate it out a little - on the left is a little pile of what I think is dried petals. Then, next to the penny, I have a little pile of chaff attached to petals (?), then a pile of seeds(?) which still have something attached. Finally on the far right there is a little pile of what I think are black seeds. I'm separating out the pile of stuff with a pair of tweezers, is this the right way to do it? Which piles should I keep and which should I throw away? Thanks so much for any help - I don't want to spend hours separating this and find I threw all the good bits away!
Natasha

On my "White Swan" coneflower the seeds look exactly like the ones at this link from the PDB. They are embedded in the cone part of the seedhead. After the seedheads dried, I just stuck heads in a lg zip lock and using the stem like a handle, tapped it against a hard surface and they fell out. My chaf didn't look anything like yours tho, maybe mine was more dried out??
http://davesgarden.com/pdb/showimage/82/

Thanks so much - I think you are right, I probably didn't let them dry out enough so my seeds were still too tiny to look like anything. A ziplock baggie is a much better idea than sorting them individually with tweezers - thanks again.
Natasha

Glad I could help!! I still had to pick out some of the hard black spiny things that came off of the head, but it was was one of the easier seeds to clean.
Vicki

trifunov,
If you don't have any luck gathering more heads let me know .... I've got a ton (of purple) and would be glad to send you some for postage .......

Thankyou, vs, you are very kind. There is one more cone on another plant, which I will leave until frost hits (about a month), then try again... If I'm still not lucky I'll send you an e-mail...
Natasha

Your seeds don't look mature to me. Either that, or they are from a bloom that didn't ripen properly.

The seed head will look black, and spiney...and will be aggrivating to break apart.

The seeds are the little triangular, grayish parts that look kinda like a cone with flat sides. They will be about 1/4 " long when mature.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, Melody, it does help. I think you are right the seeds are not mature. I did the same thing with a cosmos bloom today - I have some bought cosmos seeds and when I compared them the ones I "harvested" were obviously not as big and mature as the bought seeds. I've got to learn how to recognise when to pick the seed heads. For some reason I have this feeling the flower head will "disappear" if I don't pick it off when it looks a little brown, even though that doesn't make logical sense.
Natasha

Natasha - I usually wait until my cosmos have dried and opened up, the seeds kind of stick out like porcupine quills all around the center of the seed head. I know that sounds weird but I can't think of any other way to describe it : ) Usually when I collect them there will be some very pale chaff. The easiest way to separate that I have found is to put it all in a bowl, go OUTSIDE pick up a bunch of the seeds/chaff with your fingers and while dropping them back into the bowl, blow on them LIGHTLY. The chaff is much lighter than the seeds and it usually just blows away.

BTW, do you know where Pearl, MS is? I lived in that area with my mother for almost 10 years. I miss all the pine trees and the warmer winters. I was a teenager then so didn't get to enjoy that longer growing season, it took an act of congress just to get me to rake the yard LOL..... and now I'm a gardening addict!!!
Vicki

Yes, Pearl is very close to us. I'm just realizing how lucky I am that MS has such a long growing season, as I am lurking and reading about everyone else's first frosts and snowfalls, and everything is still blooming in my garden. Thanks for the useful info on the cosmos. I'm learning lots here at DG - so glad I joined!
Natasha.

I remember cutting Christmas trees in shorts in MS and our low here this morning was 39. It is quite a difference, I'm just glad that were not in a colder zone. We still have many nice days to dig and plan for next spring before real winter sets in, but those frost do make the flower beds so ugly.

I've learned so much here this year, I can honestly say that this is the BEST 15 bucks I've ever spent.

Vicki

I just went out and took a shot of a mature seed head with seeds. The little whitish cone shaped things are the seeds. When properly mature and dry, you can tap a seed head on something firm and the seeds will fall right out.

Hope this helps

Great pic!

That's a wonderful pic, Melody - worth a thousand words! Thank you SO much. Now I'll have to go outside with a torch and check my remaining echinacea flower head (lol).
Natasha

There will be more mature seeds around the bottom part of your flower. The top or the crown, is the last part to mature and most of the time, seeds are not viable from this area. The closest 1/3 to the stem is the place to find the best seeds.

I agree with Melody - those seeds don't look quite mature.

I wait until the cones on my echinacea are pretty much black. You don't have to save a whole lot of them if you find them ugly to look at, although sometimes, if blended right, can add contrast.

I allow mine to completely dry. Mine look similar to the ones just right of that penny, but much drier and no green. It hurts your thumb finger tip to get them off at times. They should just fall off without having all that extra chaff. I will try to remember this thread and take pics of mine when I do this (they are in brown bags like lots of my seeds now, waiting for me).

This is how I harvest echinacea seed...I wait until the seedhead turns very dark brown or black, and you can see the light coloured butt ends of the seeds "shining out from the darkness." I cut off the seed head, and drop it into a gallon size ziplock baggie and shake it like a polaroid picture, LOL! The seeds are light gray or light tan, are peg shaped, and drop right out. The other method I use when I have too much time on my hands is this...I cut the points off the prickles on the seedhead with small garden pruners..they're sharp and painful. I grasp the stem in my hand, and rake the seedhead with my thumb. April

Thanks to all your advice, I waited and waited (veeeery difficult) for my remaining coneflower to be well and truly black before harvesting the seeds. I popped it in a ziplock baggie, as you suggested, bashed it a bit - and look at these beautiful seeds which fell out! Thanks so much, everyone.
Natasha

Congrats Natasha!! I'm glad you were able to get some seeds. They look great to me!

Thanks, Sadiemae!!