Ok, this is totally random, but here’s a sea bean that I’ve had since I was a little kid.
My grandparents brought me somewhere on vacation (don’t recall where) and it was at a gift shop. They bought me it.
I don’t remember whether it was one of them who told me it or if I came up on it by my own, but I was convinced that it had some sort of magical powers… lol. Hey, don’t look at me like that… I was a little kid :) Anyhow, a few years past and I found it again. I had reached my science-loving phase, so I would try to smash it against the sidewalk to discover its inner mysteries…. No such luck. I had roughed up the outer layer of it but wasn’t any closer to figuring out what the heck it was. It got packed away somewhere until quite recently when I was going through some of my old things…
I had planned on washing it in some hot water and then seeing if I could smooth it out a bit (was a bit rough from my abuse of it as a child). It ended up sitting in a glass of water for at least a week or two because I had apparently gotten side-tracked. Well, I was shocked as heck when I saw what had happened to it. At first I didn’t notice anything different. I just knew the water was cloudy and that I had forgotten about it in the water. When I pulled it out there, there was a “growth” on one end of it. What the heck? It ended up coming off quite easily.
Upon closer inspection, it seems as if a portion of the outer shell had worn away a little bit (only in one corner). It looked like someone had taken a small nibble from a giant M&M candy. lol. But it became clear that it was indeed a seed that was trying to germinate. It was so old, I don’t think it actually would have, but that piece of the seed was designed to erode in water after a while, I guess.
Ok, well, that’s enough rambling for now….
[Update: AWESOME! I found out which type of seed it is. Check it out!]