Lorn, have you ever grown seed from a fasciated stem before?
With so many pods, it would be interesting to note the chaff versus viable seed ratio, too.
A lot of weird coloring, blotching, patterns seem to show up when leaves are senescing in the fall. The theory I have is that most of this is present in summer also, but camouflaged by the dominant color of the chloroplasts (green).
Is the hardware cloth frame a cover that you put over the pots for winter?
I would be afraid that rodents would find there way in...
If your new batches of seedlings came up as a result of cool weather, I'd be tempted to test some, and let them overwinter as normal. Tiny seedlings can be amazingly resilient sometimes.
As many of us may have noticed with lilies, contractile roots aren't always growing straight down as you would expect. I believe that this is the mechanism that spreads out bunched up seedlings when we plant a whole pot of them in the garden. Because roots are opportunistic, they grow away from each other in search of water and nutrients. Some of these roots are contractile roots and will pull the bulbs apart as they dry in the fall.
