Seeds and Seedpods

There are two parts to this section - one on Seeds, and one on Seedpods.

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

The Seedpods section is a Database of around 400 plants, with pictures of the seedpod and a description of the seedpod and seeds. There's also a picture of the seeds, information about how I germinated them, and a picture of the resulting seedling. So the Database brings together all the information given separately in the sections on Seeds, Seedlings and Germination, with additional photographs and information about the seed pods.

In the Table, all the seeds were scanned in a 1" circle, so they're about life-size. If you'd like to see more detail, there are large scale pictures of some seeds on this website

The Database is in alphabetical order of Latin names. The Plant Index includes an index of common names of plants included here.


A ~ B ~ C ~ D ~ E ~ F ~ G ~ H ~ I ~ J ~ K ~ L ~ M ~ N ~ O ~ P ~ R ~ S ~ T ~ V ~ W ~ X ~ Z

There's more information about how I germinated almost 1500 different plants in the Germination section.

Sometimes, you can identify the Family a plant belongs to by the shape of its seedpod. For more information on this, and examples of seedpods from several Plant Families, click here.

These are all photos of the real thing in my garden. 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.

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