VITALITY OF SEEDS. 29 



nated. The oldest seeds which germinated were 

 those of the Choronilla, at 42 years, and Colutea at 

 43 years of age; of the latter only one seed germi- 

 nated out of seventy-five which were planted. 



In 1843 the Gardeners' Chronicle published an 

 editorial on mummy wheat, of which the following 

 is an abstract: "Every year produces cases of this 

 sort about the harvest season, and even this season 

 at least twenty specimens have been sent us of 

 wheat ears purporting to have * a ' mummial ' ori- 

 gin; and strange to say they have all proved to 

 belong to the Egyptian wheat, or Ble de Miracle, 

 called by botanists Triticum compositum. We have 

 never however succeeded in satisfying ourselves 

 that the corn from which such wheat is said to have 

 been produced was really taken from mummy-cases. 

 There is always some defect in the evidence." 



In 1856 George Wilkes of England said: "I 

 had three small parcels of wheat, two of them 

 directly from Egypt, and I was assured they were 

 taken out of mummies ; the other was very old, but 

 from whence I know not. I planted the whole very 

 carefully, but not a grain grew." 



In 1863 the Press Scientifique des Deux Mondes 

 contained the following description of a series of 

 experiments made in Egypt by Figari-Bey on the 

 wheat found in the ancient sepulchres of that 

 country. " A long dispute occurred a few years 



