204 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



learned that they were grown from seed which had been 

 taken a few days before from the Pachira trees above men- 

 tioned. While my series of material is not so extensive as I 

 might wish, the observations seem to be worthy of presen- 

 tation. 



From the gardeners I learned that the seed was planted as 

 soon as it had fallen from the tree, and germinated almost 

 immediately, the young plants appearing in three or four days 

 and making a vigorous growth. When I noticed them the 

 hypocotyl had attained a length of about five to eight cm. 

 and the plumule was just beginning to develop. 



The fruit of P. campeslris is an ovoid capsule attaining or 

 somewhat surpassing the length of three inches, with a 

 diameter of two inches or more. When ripe, it splits into 

 five valves, each with a central septum. An axile five-winged 

 columella bears as many rows of about five seeds each. The 

 seeds vary considerably in size and shape owing to their 

 compression in the capsule. Roughly speaking, they are 

 spheroidal in form, somewhat flattened at the point of attach- 

 ment, and often much more so laterally where the neighboring 

 seeds come in contact. They have a brown ground color 

 while the very irregular, somewhat anastomosing, white bands 

 radiating from the hilum around the seed give it a very 

 characteristic appearance. The crustaceous covering is thin 

 but hard and moderately firm. The bulk of the seed is made 

 up of one large, much convoluted, fleshy cotyledon, enclosing 

 in its folds the rather large, thick radicle, the smaller cotyle- 

 don and the scanty, mucilaginous albumen. The larger 

 cotyledon is more or less reniform or cordate in outline, and 

 in the material I have examined is brought into the compass 

 of the seed by a folding in of the distal end and of the lateral 

 lobes which surround this and the radicle and small cotyledon 

 which has its ventral (inner) surface applied to the inner 

 surface of the larger cotyledon. The interstices are filled 

 with the scanty mucilaginous albumen. The plumule is 

 hardly developed, but the radicle is quite large. 



Decaisne* describes the seed of Pachira as follows: " Se- 



* Decaisne, J. Examen des especes des genres Bombax et Pachira. Fl. 

 des Serres. 23 : 43-52. 1880. 



