no POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



speaks of seeds of the sensitive plant that germinated after more 

 than sixty years of rest. Girardin * saw beans germinate that 

 were taken from Tournefort's herbarium, where they had been 

 kept more than a hundred years. 



In 1850 Robert Brown, out of curiosity, sowed some seeds from 

 the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, of which they had formed a 

 part for more than a hundred and fifty years. He succeeded in 

 making several of them germinate, particularly a seed of Nelum- 

 hium speciosum. The plant has been preserved in the galleries 

 of the British Museum.f where I saw it a few years ago. 



The pretended germination of wheat from mummies is said to 

 be a fable. It seems, besides, that wheat was always sterilized 

 before being introduced into the sarcophagi, so that the possi- 

 bility of its being brought to life again was excluded in advance. 

 On the other hand, various well- verified facts have demonstrated 

 that seeds may preserve their faculty of germinating after an ex- 

 tremely prolonged abode underground that is, when sheltered 

 from atmospheric influences. The most extraordinary case of 

 this kind was observed a few years ago by Prof, de Heldereich, I 

 director of the Botanical Garden at Athens. While herborizing 

 around the mines of Laurium, this naturalist discovered, in 1875, 

 a glaucium, which he unhesitatingly considered a new species, 

 and described under the name of Glaucium serpieri. The plant 

 had just made its appearance on a tract from which had recently 

 been removed a thick bed of scoria produced in the workings of 

 the mines by the ancients, or at least fifteen hundred years ago. 

 Unless we assume a spontaneous generation, this glaucium must 

 be regarded as a species which existed formerly in the place, the 

 seeds of which had been preserved intact under the protection of 

 the ground and the scoria that covered them. 



Many instances are mentioned in which the opening of deep 

 trenches or the clearing of forests has been followed by the ap- 

 pearance of species formerly unknown in the place. Prof. Peter, 

 of Gottingen,* has very recently made a long series of method- 

 ical researches, the results of which are of great interest. His 

 method consists in collecting specimens of forest earth, the age 

 and all the anterior conditions of which are fully known. He 

 cultivates them, taking all precautions against introducing for- 

 eign seeds. These specimens of earth are always taken from 



* Sur la propriete qu'ont certaines espfeces de graines de conserver longtemps leurs 

 vertues germinatives. 



f See Gartenflora, 1873, p. 323. 



X These facts have been recently confirmed by Mr. W. Carruthers, director of the bo- 

 tanical galleries in the British Museum. 



* Nachrichten v. d. ktinigl. Gesellschaft dcr Wissenschaften u. d. Georg- Augustus 

 Universitiit zu Gottingen, November, 1893, and December, 1894. 



