We have lift off! The first to germinate is the Desert Bird of Paradise - Caesalpinia gilliesii! The cotyledons were totally encapsulated so I took an exacto knife and cut the coat along one side.
One of the problems of starting seeds indoors on heat mats is that the seed coat does not have time to soften up enough for the cotyledons to break the coat so the cotyledons get trapped. When I see this happening, I immediately do 'surgery' to free the cotyledons.
