Summer Seed Collection

Written by Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds on August 16, 2024. Posted in Uncategorized.

Suzie collecting Klamath plum (Prunus subcordata) fruit in the foothills of the Siskiyou Crest.

We’ve been busy out in the field in far flung places across southwest Oregon and northwest California, collecting seeds, and trying our best to keep up with seed orders, and get out-of-stock species back in stock! You can see a list of back-in-stock species at the bottom of this post. We’re happy to have round headed buckwheat (Eriogonum sphaerocephalum), Siskiyou lewisia (Lewisia cotyledon), heartleaf milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia), Cascade oregon grape (Berberis nervosa), giant trillium (Trillium albidum), Pacific hound’s tongue (Adelinia grandis), Henderson’s shooting star (Dodecatheon hendersonii), and golden currant (Ribes aureum) all back in stock this week, with much more to come as we keep cleaning seeds.

Luke collecting tarweed (Madia elegans) seeds in the Applegate Valley in southwest Oregon.

We aren’t able to stock every species we’ve offered every year, as we are at the whims of nature, and not every year is a good seed production year for every species. Some species only produce seed every few years, some only produce on dry years, some only produce on wet years, and every year is different. Sometimes we drive hours on back roads to collect seeds of a species that has a lot of people on the waiting list, and we might even be lucky enough to find that the species produced seed, and we collect a lot of material, but when we clean it down there’s hardly any good, viable seed. This is where seed collection can be difficult, and we can’t predict exactly what seed we will have every year, especially for some unreliable species. We encourage you to sign up for notifications for out-of-stock species so you will get an email when it is available again.

In this photo on the left, a path lined with the leaves of trail plant leads the way to collecting Cascade Oregon grape (Berberis nervosa) fruit in mixed conifer forest in the Siskiyou Mountains. The seeds in the fruit are separated from the pulp in the seed cleaning process, then dried down and winnowed. Cleaning fleshy fruit is a big part of our late summer seed cleaning schedule.

Cascade Oregon grape (Berberis nervosa) seeds after cleaning.

Sometimes we collect native seeds in brutally hot weather — that’s when many seeds are ready, and we can’t wait or we’ll be too late! We cover up and tough it out, and take a swim in the creek at the end of the day to cool off.

Part of the skill involved in seed collection is species identification after plants have passed their peak bloom time and have begun to senesce. Some small plants can be hard to find when they dry out, and even large plants can look quite different when the seeds are ready to collect. They may be completely dried out, withered, or deteriorated. We spend a lot of time getting to know this stage of plants so we can find them when we need to. It’s also important to keep good records of where we collect seeds so we can return in future years if the timing is right.

We hadn’t had a chance to collect seeds of round headed buckwheat (Eriogonum sphaerocephalum) for a few years, but finally made it back to a spot we’ve collected seeds at before this summer, and we have some limited seeds back in stock. (See below)