Red Maid Seeds (Calandrinia ciliata)

A gorgeous and striking little annual wildflower with pink to deep red flowers.

Red maids, has an incredible natural range, occurring from British Columbia to South America (with amazingly disjunct populations in places such as Massachusetts and the Falkland Islands). A relative of common garden purslane, red maids is similarly diminutive, mostly staying less than a foot tall, and producing slightly succulent leaves.

Hardy and tolerant of poor soils, this is an excellent colonizer of frequently disturbed sites: saline sea coasts, rocky and serpentine mountain soils, gravel parking lots and cracks in the pavement. Red maids is also a great species for green roofs, and makes for a showy ornamental container plant (contrasting boldly with meadowfoam, and baby blue eyes). In fertile soils, red maids tends to decline over time as longer-lived perennial plants and grasses displace it.

The tiny, edible, nutrient-dense seeds of red maids were formerly eaten by first peoples as pinole (along with the seeds of various other western wildflowers: seablush, showy tarweed, farewell to spring, and western buttercup). The seeds are also favored by birds and other small animals.

Approximately 2000+ seeds (2.0 grams).