Crumby - Ecology for the Tiny and Underepresented

Long have I pondered how come we never get any Penstemon cobaea seedlings ever. We have a big plant or two. They flower all right and produce fruits and seeds and some of the seeds look OK, but we never get any seedlings, ever. That aint right. So today I studied Penstemon fruit and seed under the microscope to try and see what was going on. The only animals identified in the seed pods were Psocopterans maybe. I tried to get some pictures of the Pscopterans, but the only one I could get a good picture of had its head squashed. I am sorry for that. It was an accident.

I was fairly surprised that Psocopterans of all ages are habitating in Penstemon fruits. That is troubling to me. I didn't know Psocopterans did any such thing like that. Perhaps they are the ones that are destroying my Penstemon seeds. I never heard of such a thing though. Anyway, apart from the ones I squashed by accident, those Psocopterans shall not be punished yet. They could be entirely innocent.

But here's something else I found on the surface of what looks to be a viable Penstemon seed. It appears to be some sort of cocoon, maybe. It's about 0.5mm long. Good Goddess, maybe this is the culprit.