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By Jill M. Nicolaus (critterologist)
Finding and collecting seeds from plants after they've flowered doesn't require lots of intricate botanical knowledge. If you've never collected seeds before, you'll be surprised at what you can find once you start looking. These tips will get you started, but the best way to learn is just by doing. Get out into the garden and investigate the spent, dried blooms on the plants. You'll find the seeds! The ovary where seeds form is generally found at the base of the flower, so if you remember how the plant looked when it was blooming, you'll have a good idea of where to look for the seeds. Seeds vary a lot in appearance. Some are large and crinkled, some are round and shiny, some are like dust. It can be confusing at first, but once you learn to recognize the seeds of one or two plants, you'll get the hang of figuring out where the seeds are on other plants.
Some plants tend to drop their seeds before you can harvest them. In those cases, you might want to bag the developing seedheads. Fabric mesh wedding favor bags are inexpensive and work well for this purpose. With tiny seeds that are easily lost, I like to snip off the seedheads into a paper bag or other container. A little shaking will generally drop the seeds to the bottom of the bag for easy separation from the snipped stems and spent blooms. Hybrid plants, created by crossing one variety with another, won't generally come true from seed. Some hybrids may be sterile and not produce seeds, or the seeds might not sprout. If you're not sure if a plant is hybrid or "open pollinated," whether to collect seeds from it or buy seeds instead depends on how disappointed you'd be if it didn't work out. Especially with seeds I'm collecting for winter sowing, where little effort is needed to try starting them, I often figure "nothing ventured, nothing gained." From dandelions to castor beans, plants have their own unique ways of forming and dispersing seeds. Looking at some examples will give you an idea of where you'll find seeds on some common garden plants.
Some DG PlantFiles entries include seed photos, and there are other good seed identification resources online, such as TheSeedSite. DG subscribers can turn to the Saving Seeds forum and other discussion forums for help with finding and harvesting seeds from different types of plants. Once you start saving seeds from a few garden favorites, you may find yourself looking for seeds everywhere. The art and sport of seed snatchin' is an honored tradition among many DGers. Collecting your own seeds is easy and can become downright addictive. It's a great way to get lots of seeds for sharing, trading, and sowing! Whether you start seeds inside or winter sow them, it's fun to have a fat seed stash to choose from when it's time to start planting. Get out into the garden and shake down your plants for some seeds! Photos in the article were taken by me in my garden. Move your mouse over the images for additional information. Understanding the botany of flowers can give you an even better idea of where to look for seeds, so please check out LariAnn's excellent and clearly-written Botany for gardeners--The basics of blooms Botany for gardeners--More blooms: simple to complex
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When you're poking around at plant parts, looking for seeds, remember that the seeds will usually be harder, often darker, and more uniform in appearance than the surrounding bits of chaff and dried leaves. On most plants, you'll want to wait until the seed stems are turning dry and brown before collecting seeds, or the seeds won't yet be mature. Immature seeds are often green, with a soft coat that you can dent with your fingernail. 
Coneflowers (Echinacea), black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia), yellow ox-eye (Heliopsis helianthoides), and blanket flowers (Gaillardia) have very different looking seeds, but they all form in a cluster at the center of the flower petals.
