The Seed section is a chart of 700 seeds sorted by size and shape. All the pictures are more or less life-size, photographed in a 1" circle. If you have some seeds with no name, this might help you to identify them.
These pictures can't be entirely accurate. For one thing, seeds even in the same seedpod can vary a bit in size and shape, so the particular seeds I've scanned might be a little different from the seeds of the same species you have. They can also change colour as they age. Some might be bright green or red or orange when they're fresh, but dry to a dark brown. They can also shrivel during storage, so old seeds might be smaller than fresh seeds.
The photos also can't show you whether they're round or flat, although those that are thin and papery are on separate pages. I hope eventually to be able to include all the seeds in the Database, where there's also a description of the seed.
So the Chart goes from dust-like and tiny seeds to big seeds, with seeds with Tufts or Tails and Cone or Grain Shaped Seeds on separate pages. Small seeds with Papery Edges and larger seeds with Wings or Papery Edges are also on separate pages. I hope this makes sense - it did to me when I started it!
Tiny ~ Very Small ~ Small ~ Smallish ~ Medium-sized ~ Biggish ~ Big ~ Very big ~ Tails ~ Cones & grains ~ Winged
Although having all the seeds shown to the same scale does mean you can tell what size a particular seed is compared to the other seeds, it does mean you can't see the detail of small seeds. I've now included a section of larger scans of 750 seeds so you can see more detail, but please remember the seeds in this section are not all to the same scale. The larger-scale pictures are in alphabetical order of Latin names, starting here.
There are more large scale pictures of seeds on this website, or beautiful large-scale photos of seeds and seedpods mainly of alpine plants on the Scottish Rock Garden Club forum.
The Seedpods section has photographs of over 350 seedpods. To start with, there are pages of Seedpods listed according to the Plant Family they belong to. This is because the pods of many plants in some Plant Families are much the same, and you can often make a good guess about the Family a plant belongs to by examining its seedpod. There's more about this and descriptions of seedpods typical of some Plant Families on this page. On the other hand, some Plant Families have seedpods of many different shapes and sizes, so knowing the Family isn't much help. Where I haven't had enough pods of a particular Family to put them together, I've listed them in alphabetical order of their botanical (Latin) name. For both Iridaceae and Liliaceae, I've included plants sometimes put in separate Families by some botanists. The photos of seedpods are on the following pages:
If you don't know which Plant Family a plant belongs to, you can just look through the photographs to identify a pod, or put the common name in the Search Box below.
These are all photos of the real thing in my garden or other gardens I've visited. If I haven't grown a plant to flowering or producing seeds, I haven't been able to photograph a seedpod. For some of the tropical trees and shrubs, I've sometimes had seedpods sent to me from other gardeners around the world, and I'm very grateful to all of them. I must especially thank Tricia from the US, Susan McNally in Jamaica, and Chris who sent seeds and seedpods from Zambia. It's been very exciting to see where the seeds I'm growing have come from! Sometimes, I've had a seedling but the slugs have munched it full of holes, so I haven't photographed it. Sometimes, I've sown all the seeds and only have a photo of the seedling. At present, there are a lot of gaps, but in time I hope to have them all filled. I'll also be adding more images as my seedlings grow up to produce seedpods.
Need Help?
If you can't find what you're looking for, perhaps because you only know the common name of a plant or the botanical name has changed, try searching here:
