I am madly saving seeds at the moment to send off to the Cottage Garden Society for their annual Seed Exchange. The organiser wants them by 30 Sept but it has been such a mild, wet summer that most are still not ripe or dry. However, sometimes I find the seed pods as beautiful as the flowers themselves. Take Canna iridiflora for instance, first the flower:

And then the equally pretty seed pods swell, darken and burst with ‘Indian Shot’

And in the case of the enormous and beautiful Castor Oil Plant, Ricinus communis, as well as having fantastic dark reddish green foliage, it produces some fairly insignificant flowers

followed by these brightly coloured seed pods the size of chestnuts!

Seed pods of Ricinus communis ‘Impala’