Seed head of
Flat Sea Holly
Eryngium planum
Enrygo. Photo by
Clarence A. Rechenthin.
Click for more Rechenthin photos.
Sea Holly produces a brown central cone when the seeds are mature. With your thumb and forefinger carefully pull the cone from the plant stem. If it is ripe it will come away easily, having to tug at the cone in order to remove it signals that the seeds are not mature yet.
Allow the cone to dry for a few days in a warm place. Press it between your fingers with a rubbing motion and the cone will break apart into many seperate parts, these small brown parts are the seeds themselves. Visually, they appear shaped like small arrowheads with a bit of fringe on the wider end, or, more imaginatively, they look like very tiny tan shuttlcocks
by Terry Deem-Reilly, Colorado Master Gardener
Denver County Cooperative Extension
Colorado State University
Plants Database
Natural Resources Conservation Service
United Stated Department of Agriculture
by Don Janssen, Extension Educator
University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension in Lancaster County
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New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station
Rutgers Cooperative Research and Extension
by Cindy Haynes, Extension Horticulturist
Yard and Garden Column for the Week Beginning March 30 Extension News: 3/26/01
Iowa State University Extension
by Elaine Mohr, Former Extension Assistant, Horticulture
and Gus van der Hoeven, Extension Specialist, Landscape and Environmental Horticulture
Horticulture Factsheet No. 2067, December 1996
Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service
Kansas State University
by Dennis Bozzay and Yvonne Homeyer
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North American Butterfly Association
NABA.Org