Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A very odd story, people in Utah and Virginia have reported receiving unsolicited packets of seeds from China, mislabelled as Jewellery. Utah and Virginia Agriculture departments are investigating.
Mysterious seeds sent from China to Utah
By: Adam HerbetsPosted at 9:13 PM, Jul 22, 2020 and last updated 3:41 AM, Jul 24, 2020
TOOELE, Utah — Over the past few weeks, people in Utah have been reporting mysterious packages they’ve been receiving in the mail from China.
Lori Culley, who lives in Tooele, said she was excited to find two small packages in her mailbox on Tuesday. Although most of the writing on the outside was in Chinese, the label indicated there would be earrings inside.
“I opened them up and they were seeds,” Culley said. “Obviously they’re not jewelry!”
Culley couldn’t understand why she would be receiving mislabeled seeds from China in the mail, but at first she didn’t think much of it.
She posted about the strange incident on Facebook, where some of her friends reminded her plants and seeds are strictly regulated in Utah.
FOX 13 has confirmed the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food will likely team up with Customs and Border Protection agents to investigate.
…
Read more: https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/utah-department-of-agriculture-investigates-mysterious-seeds-sent-from-china-to-tooele
The following is a tweet of seeds collected by Virginia Department of Agriculture (h/t Fox News).
Even Snopes accepts that people have been receiving unsolicited packets of seeds from China, though they question people jumping to conclusions, ascribing harmful motives to whoever is sending the seeds.
Virginia Department of Agriculture advises people not to plant the seeds.
PRESS RELEASES
July 24, 2020
Public Asked To Report Receipt of any Unsolicited Packages of Seeds
Contact: Michael Wallace, 804.786.1904The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) has been notified that several Virginia residents have received unsolicited packages containing seeds that appear to have originated from China. The types of seeds in the packages are unknown at this time and may be invasive plant species. The packages were sent by mail and may have Chinese writing on them.
Please do not plant these seeds. VDACS encourages anyone who has received unsolicited seeds in the mail that appears to have Chinese origin to contact the Office of Plant Industry Services (OPIS) at 804.786.3515 or through the ReportAPest@vdacs.virginia.gov email.
Invasive species wreak havoc on the environment, displace or destroy native plants and insects and severely damage crops. Taking steps to prevent their introduction is the most effective method of reducing both the risk of invasive species infestations and the cost to control and mitigate those infestations.
Source: http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/press-releases-200724-seeds.shtml
Obviously at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions its easy to suspect the worst. But the seeds could have nothing to do with the Chinese Government. The simple truth is everyone seems to be guessing, nobody seems to have any idea why someone decided to send packets of seeds to random people in the USA.
I think the key takeaway is don’t plant them. Don’t even try to burn them, if they are toxic the smoke from burning even a small number of seeds could harm you. Call your local department of Agriculture to dispose of them safely.
If any botanists out there have any idea what the seeds are, please post in comments.
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Are they set up with bot box?
Or did they order something from Wish?
Bot box might explain it….how they got the order that is. As for the seeds themselves, if they were all labeled jewelry, sounds like a shipping mixup OR a translation problem.
They look very similar to poppy seeds.
No, poppy seeds are very fine, like dust. These are not poppy seeds.
I agree with you: those are NOT poppy seeds.
More seeds, then poppy.
I guess john has never seen a poppy seed 😉
Morningglory seeds. Chew them and go on a trip without leaving home.
You’re an ass. This is a potentially serious problem. Save your lame jokes for another story, idiot.
[reply: imho, it is you who are being out of line, so dial it back-mod]
They look like kaljoni (nigella) seeds to me. I use them in Indian cooking.
That was my first guess. They look like Rivea corymbosa seeds, called Ololiuqui by the Central American natives who used it as an intoxicant. Better not to chew them because commercial morning glory seeds are often coated with a pesticide.
Apparently, it’s several types of seeds and it’s happening in multiple locations including the U.K.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8535661/Hundreds-British-gardeners-receive-unsolicited-deliveries-garden-seeds-sent-China.html
ZeroHedge will have the whole conspiracy theory mapped out, including the Rothschild angle. Resistance is futile. Assume the position!
I think they are carob seeds. They were used as a standard measure (Karat) in jewelry for the property of having the same weight each seed.
Clearly you are correct. They are also used as beads to make jewelery. They are quite useful to weigh down the edges of tin foil hats.
Ever wonder where the term ‘carat’ originates from?
‘Carat’ is a term used to describe the weight of a diamond, and the word originates from Ceratonia siliqua, commonly known as the Carob tree.
In ancient times, before scales and units of mass were invented, diamond traders compared the weight of a diamond to the seeds of the Carob tree. Each Carob seed had a uniform weight, equal to 0.20 grams or 200 milligrams and hence determined the weight of the diamond.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carat_(mass)
morning glory seed
This was my thought as well. I’ve done some outreach/education work for parents on drugs and analogues that teens can easily get their hands on. Morning glory is one of many semi-legal “highs”. Legality varies by jurisdiction. You can but these at the dollar store where I live.
Many vendors on many platforms will send small orders to real verifiable addresses, then leave positive feedback, as a way to astroturf a positive rating and high sales count.
Photo of morning glory seeds and a description of non-horticultural usage here:
https://erowid.org/plants/morning_glory/morning_glory_basics.shtml
Education and harm reduction is important in my opinion. Seeds are often coated in toxic anti-fungal and other agents and the seeds contain many different substances in addition to the “desirable” ones that can cause violent (albeit usually temporary) illness. And like any novel substance, interactions with other medications, pre-existing conditions, etc. could conceivably lead to very bad outcomes.
MJB
every one should go this link in the reply https://erowid.org/plants/morning_glory/morning_glory_basics.shtml
and then comment if the seeds in this link look like the ones in the post. I think so.
well that’s what they are….morning glory seed
the color and triangle indents give it away
Would carob seeds be used for beads though?
I could see for gems, but most things labeled “jewelry” are beads.
Labeling as jewelry helps get around phytosanitary import requirements for inbound seeds/plants.
Yes, exactly. If they had been labelled accurately, they would have been blocked at customs
I’ve gotten my two accurately labeled packets of seeds from China recently, bamboo and dwarf weeping willow, both were accurate.
The theory of phyto avoiding on customs is laughable.
Seeds and plants are supposed to be inspected by the Dept of Agriculture. But it’s likely the case that they could declare the stuff as opium poppy seeds, infused with plutonium and anthrax, and 99 out of 100 packets would sail through customs unchecked.
“Prjindigo July 26, 2020 at 1:01 pm”
Depends where you live. Here in Australia you can be heavily fined for taking apples across state borders. You can be fined at the border at airports if not declaring fruit given to you on the plane.
But I get your point. Border control can’t catch everything, sometimes guns and tonnes of drugs get though with a carefully selected and placed border “official”.
My at the time 9-yr-old daughter got off to a bad start on our visit to Sydney due to an apple, so I know what you’re talking about.
Re: Prjindigo
Sincere question: How does your anecdote make the theory laughable?
Phythosanitary restrictions are real (in the US anyway), even if not a priority for enforcement. A savy business person in China would be aware of this and if they were either unable to get approval, or couldn’t be bothered, it’s a reasonable strategy to simply change the labeling. As others have pointed out some seeds are indeed used as beads making a jewelry label plausible should the package be inspected.
Your successful import of seeds could mean that you were dealing with a reputable supplier that had appropriate documentation.
For example USDA (APHIS) provides permits for up to 3-years for ongoing importation of small seed lots. This means a phytosanitary certificate is not required if conditions of the permit are adhered to. Conditions include package labeling requirements and a number of excluded species/genus/types.
Wouldn’t Pu radiations neutralize anthrax?
Like disinfectant (or light) does for corona.
Look far too grey and angular for carob but I like the carob/karat idea: could tie in with possible translation error.
How long does it take Department of Agriculture to identify a seed ?!
Seems an unlikely “mistake”. Maybe they are now trying to spread a plant virus to further cripple the economy.
My question, also. How long can it take to identify seeds? I’ve seen pictures of a couple of variations on what was received, but there are databases everywhere of what seeds look like. It’s very odd that no one seems to know what these are.
Carob seeds tend to be smoother, even shiny, and a little more regular in shape.
dont look big or brown enough for carob
be useful to have a decent pic closer up
Carob seeds (from pods) are the size of a nickle, flat like a nickel, sticky and black. These are morning glory seeds.
Looks like buckwheat to me.
I agree. WT?
Buckwheat is isn’t as dark as these seeds.
That’s racist.
Actually, some are nearly black.
No, you are racist. Some “blacks” are not at all dark. Some are whiter than I am.
Ah ha, you admit you are white, though perhaps not the whitest, therefore you are racist.
Your picture is hulled buckwheat. Raw it has a dark hull.
This has been happening here in the UK too.
Giant beanstalk
“Don’t even try to burn them, if they are toxic the smoke from burning even a small number of seeds could harm you.”
Are there really seeds on earth that are toxic to burn or is this someone’s fantasy on steroids.
While the seeds themselves might not be toxic, they could have been soaked in a toxic substance then dried leaving a toxic coating on the outside. Possibly even a dried poison which could be absorbed through the skin making the recipient sick when wet seeds are touched.
Poison Ivy, Giant Hogweed, Foxglove for starters. No doubt about it, burning the seeds can be big trouble.
No telling what other fun plants they have in Asia.
Also, you get an invasive species going, they can be almost impossible to get rid of.
They’re prb’ly genetically engineered super-Ailanthus seeds, meant to take over our croplands. Russia is colluding w/the Chi-coms and sending super-Siberian elm and Russian olive seeds.
In support of that, see this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RLTI9bja4So
I meant Kudzu is invasive to the US.
Both. Back in the day when they were being banned, I was led to believe that the combustion of PCBs created the most deadly poisons known to man. Dioxins for example. As far as I can tell after a web search, dioxins are nowhere near the most deadly poisons known to man.
Anyway, the incomplete combustion of the seeds could create dioxins and furans and they might possibly harm you by increasing your chance of developing cancer or something like that. As far as I can tell, the wood dust in buddy’s workshop is quite a bit more dangerous. Same for the chemicals used in an auto body shop.
Based on a deep understanding gained by scanning a couple of Wikipedia articles, I would say that burning incense probably creates dioxins and furans.
I’ve read that burning incense in Catholic cathedrals has protected the wood from insects. I don’t recall that the article mentioned why.
Maybe it also causes parishioners to look old. {invoke Poe’s Law}
Over many centuries of candle-burning, wax condenses and builds up on surfaces inside a cathedral — particularly the ceiling. This accounts for many older ceiling paintings looking much more brilliant in color contrast after the paintings are cleaned.
bob I dont think a few grams of whatever seeds is going to harm anyone
you wouldnt(or shouldnt) be standing over the burning area inhaling anyway;-)
they could be a weed but unless someone plants them ?
anyones guess.
WebMD: “Ricin from the hull of the castor seed has been tested as a chemical warfare agent. Weapons-grade ricin is purified and produced in particles that are so small they can be breathed in. The smaller the particle size, the more poisonous the ricin.”
Used by the communists to assasinate the dissident bulgarian George Markov:
-“Georgi Markov was assassinated on a London street via a micro-engineered pellet containing ricin, fired into his leg from an umbrella wielded by someone associated with the Bulgarian Secret Service. It has been speculated that they asked the KGB for help.[2]”-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov
As unlikely as it seems “Ogiri-isi” is a humanly edible preparation of the castor seed perfected in a traditional Nigerian process. I never tried their method despite lots of seeds produced near my tropical farm house.
In the posted picture those are definitely not castor seeds – if anyone unsure.
I’m 100% convinced that they contain, at the moment an undetected weaponized virus ..
weaponized curly top
weaponized mosaic
weaponized psorosis
weaponized spotted wilt
Of course something new, and of course deadly..h/t Xitler’s RED China.*cough-spit*
Never forget, the world is a science lab to them…
This has been going on for a few days. How long does it take to identify a seed?
Seeds of the invasive Batshit vine from southern China, laced with sars-cov-3.
The taxonomy of seeds is very slim. Taxonomy of a whole specimen plant is tough by itself without context clues.
Look to see what genetically modified “chimera” seeds have recently been banned from being circulated inside China, yet are still approved for export …
looks like morning glory (farmers know them as bindweed) seeds.
got quite a bit around here, got them in areas where I actually want them and are pretty.
so NOT plant unless you know the specifics of how these grow, spread by roots too, can have feelers few feet deep and MANY feet long, followed one here 20+ feet that was 8-12 inches deep.
Garden types of Morning Glory are grown for their large flowers, 4 to 5 inches across. Bindweed that I know has small flowers (an inch across), but I only have seen the one type.
Field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), also known as morning glory
mainegov-images.informe(DOT)org/dacf/php/gotpests/weeds/factsheets/morning-glory-wash.pdf
replace (DOT) with . for url/link.
pink ones here openings about 2-3 inches, very pretty. need to be very very careful about where to plant and disposing of clippings.
“… flowers that are mostly white but may contain pink, and are about an inch or two in diameter. The flowers . . . may be in groups of 2 or 3.”
– – an inch or two – –
just went out and measured some on plant closest to house crawling up a lilac tree.
3 were 1 1/2 inches.
4 are 1 3/4 inches.
6 are 2 to 2 1/2 inches.
2 are 2 3/4 inches.
basically all over the place from 1 1/2 to 2 3/4 inches.
sent samples to University Maine coop few years back, wanted to verify it as it was in large (40 or so cubic yards) compost pile I had. they identified as Convolvulus arvensis.
It is likely an illegal scam called “brushing”. The seller sends crap to random addresses to generate the appearance of a huge business.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/27/americans-are-receiving-unordered-parcels-from-chinese-e-criminals-and-cant-do-anything-about-it/#1abab0f473da
Likely another gain-of-function genetic engineering “research” project from Red China that produced a chimera that was far too dangerous to release, or even dispose of, with its own borders. The straightforward method of eliminating their problem is to distribute all of the product to other nations and have them handle it. 😉
The initial leak in Wuhan was probably an accident. But they cannot pretend that having stopped all internal travel, allowing ( indeed promoting ) tens of thousands of international flights was not a deliberate attempt to infect the rest of the planet.
Either that or they figured they needed some plausible deniability and with 2 billion population and a skewed demographic from the “one child” policy, they figured they could handle some losses in predominantly “senior” tranche of the population.
I don’t think it was a manufactured virus. (I sure hope it wasn’t or we a royally screwed). But, I think they were experimenting with animals that carried corona viruses and they did not handle them with proper bio-security. There is a letter from US diplomatic attaches in late 2019 telling the State Department that the Wuhan Lab is poorly managed.
I also firmly believe that the Chinese regime decided the ability of the virus to systematically kill senior citizens was a feature not a bug. They have simply stopped looking for or reporting deaths from WuFlu.
Ummm, Walter . . . in your parenthetical comment in the first sentence of your post, please justify your use of the word “or”.
😉
If they really ARE out to get you, …it’s NOT paranoia.
FWIW: I got this app and it’s pretty amazing, it can identify almost any plant from its picture.
https://www.picturethisai.com
If you don’t sign up for the premium free trial you can keep using the free version.
What worries me: is for every person who reports these mystery seeds, there might be 100 who either tosses them in the trash or plants them.
Chinese are sneaky that way!
Plan A:
Send the seeds to thousands of random addresses. This provides cover, and plausable deniability, for your real plan of getting the seeds to your operatives all over the country. True, the athorities are alerted, but confusion results, and you have a good diversion. Remember, when someone creates a diversion, there is a reason for it.
Me? No, I am not paranoid, why do you ask?
Looks like lupine seeds – nice flower
More seed than lupin. When did you last see one? Ever?
Our domestic and wild lupine seeds that we picked in the last ten days are a reddish brown to light brown ovoid discs.
Exactly, the seeds in the article are angular not ovoid.
Clearly, those are beans of the Jacobus Flavus variety. In some circles, these are considered fair exchange for a cow. Just throw them out of a window at night and see what you get in the morning. You might be surprised.
I agree with you: those are NOT poppy seeds.
The look like morning glory seeds to me.
Triffids … of course.
Like the Wuhan Flu, just another Chicomm Bioweapon plot against the US.
Chairman Xi watched this really bad movie from 2009 and thought they’d try it.
https://youtu.be/X6CruxqLp-U
/s
The original movie was much better from 1962 😉
The original novel was fine.
More like DR WHO and the “Seed of Doom” – ” All vegetation on this planet is about to turn hostile!”
who had “feed me Seymour” for august?
My guess is daylily [Hemerocallis] seeds, which are fairly round, most often shiny black, and are shipped worldwide by daylily growers. I grow daylilies myself, and have shipped seeds to a few places in the US, but not overseas. The morning glory seeds shown are not like daylily seeds: they are pointed and not round as daylily seeds are. Daylily seeds, of course, are quite harmless in their natural state; but until the seeds in the photo are analyzed, no one knows what treatments, chemicals, or other agents may have been applied to them. Further, if they are not daylily seeds, they may be of some highly invasive and destructive genus. I would say that turning them over to the state Agricultural department would be best. I live in Virginia and imagine that our state ag agents would be good people to verify the source and nature of the seeds.
Seeds of doubt.
+42^42
My plant identifier app matches these most closely to seeds of a Chinese Tallow tree, common in the SE USA. Considered an ornamental tree but also invasive.
Seed smugglers got their customer data base hacked/swapped/mixed up ?
Has no expert identified what type of plant they’re off ?