Pritchardia Seed Question

[Kumar]

I've been sent some seed by a friend who has three pritchardias growing in his compound by the sea. The seeds are the size of peas, about 1.1 cm diameter before defleshing and 1 cm after defleshing. Colour is chocolote brown with a tint of red. While defleshing, I noticed that in some seeds the pulp took a little bit of knife-work to remove leaving behind a 'classic' very slight ovaloid (1 cm x 0.8 cm). For a few others the outer pulp cracked open with a pop and the seed was very smooth very spherical, and very dry - like a miniature ping-pong ball. My questions are (1) Are these the same species ? (2) If not, presumably the smoother ones are older seed - will they be viable ? and how easy is germinating pritchardia ?

I have a few photos of the plant on my phone but i'm not able to transfer to the PC for now so no photos to identiry species.

[mike in kurtistown]

The difference in the ease of cleaning could very well be related to age, with older ones being more dried out, making it easier to pop the mesocarp away from the seed. Pritchardia seeds are reliable and fast germinators after cleaning when fresh, but tend to loose viablility rather fast (couple to a few weeks). They can be germinated with the shell still on or removed, but will germinate faster if the shell is removed. Good luck.