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Romneya coulteri

>Dear Group,
>We managed to get a liter of GA-3 solution (10 ml=1 mg) last year, but have
>been, so far, unsuccessful in getting seeds to germinate by using it.  We
>tried to follow Norman Deno's instructions, essentially using a *really*
>tiny amount on a small pad of paper towel inside a plastic bag, etc.  (We
>tried to germinate Romneya coulteri seeds, but are interested in trying it
>with others as well.)
>
>Our question is this:  How do others use  GA-3 successfully?  And how does
>one deal with the very tiny seeds that are too small to really handle with
>a tweezer, after germination?
>
>TIA,
>
>Bill & Harvey
>SKID  zone 6  CT  USA


I'd love to have more info about Ga-3 as well, but I'm writing to ask a
question about Romneya coulteri, aka matilija poppies.  As most of the
readers of this group know, Romneya is famously difficult to germinate
(which may be why it's restricted to such a tiny area in the wild),
although it's easy enough to divide in the spring.  Since it's a chaparral
plant, it's probably fire-adapted -- but not necessarily because it needs
heat, as do many closed-cone pines, for instance.  I wonder if it's not
more like some proteas in needing not heat, but certain chemicals in order
to overcome its dormancy.  I read in Pacific Horticulture a year or two ago
about some experiments done at Kirstenbosch in South Africa, in which they
discovered that some protea species seed needed *chemicals contained in the
smoke* of burning fynbos plants in order to germinate. Interestingly, the
composition of the burned material seemed to be important, i.e. smoke from
non-fynbos plants didn't work.  Kirstenbosch now sells little discs of
paper which have been soaked in smoke solution, which supposedly work just
fine as aids to germination for these proteas -- the idea is you moisten
the paper and set the seeds on it, and the chemicals in the paper are
transferred to the seed, which then germinates.  Pretty elegant solution, I
thought.  Anyway, my question is, does anyone know if similar studies have
been done on Romneya?  Maybe one should try burning a bunch of ponderosa
pine and arctostaphylos chips and see what you get.


(All right, I live in California.  I guess if no one else has experimented
with this, it'll be up to me to do it.)

Phil

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Philip Stevens
Assistant Director
Center for Cultural Studies
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA  95064
(408)459-3436
(408)459-4979 (fax)
pstevens@cats.ucsc.edu
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