Successful Persoonia Germination

Glenn Leiper

Over the years I’ve tried unsuccessfully to germinate any Persoonia (Geebung) seed. Seed of P. virgata, P. sericea, P. stradbrokensis, P. cornifolia and P. tenuifolia has all rotted away in the seed-raising mix, often sitting for a couple of years showing no sign of life. It became obvious that some factor was lacking that initiated the germination process.

Apparently many nurseries have tried Persoonia seed germination over the years and met with similar results. All sorts of techniques and strategies have been used, all to no avail.

In the field, you often see Persoonia seedlings, so some natural process has given these seeds the trigger to get going. As Persoonia fruit are edible, I figured that the action of an animal’s digestive process might provide that necessary trigger.

We had a fledgling Red-eyed Figbird given to us by a local resident, as we often raise and eventually release orphaned birds. We had never tried a figbird before we took up the challenge. During the summer months there was no shortage of small fruit and berries such as Eugenia reinwardtiana, Austromyrtus dulcis and Syzygium luehmannii. The figbird devoured these with great relish.

During a bushwalk one day I collected some Persoonia stradbrokensis fruit and thought I’d give it a try on the figbird, with the eventual aim of sowing the ‘passed’ seed.

The figbird gobbled down the fruit and I collected the seed from the bird’s droppings the next day. There was certainly no massive obvious change in the Persoonia seeds’ appearance. In fact, they still had most of the flesh on them. I thought about feeding them back to the figbird a second time, but had second thoughts on my duty of care! So I sowed the 8 seeds that day in November.

I put the pot of seed in our nursery under the automatic watering system, and promptly forgot them. I eventually remembered to check them in May next year, and lo and behold, three seedlings! Unfortunately, I gave the seedlings away without waiting to see if any more would eventually germinate.

What makes it even more unfortunate, we released the figbird some months ago! It returns every few weeks for a feed of Eugenia reinwardtiana, but the experiments with Persoonia seed have finished!

After my experiments with this ‘treatment’ process, I wonder if it is possible to use other birds in the same way? While it was relatively easy (although a little unpleasant) to collect seed from the figbird’s droppings, I suspect the task may be rather more difficult logistically with chooks and ducks!