GERMINATION OF WILD CUCUMBER SEED 



By J. Ford Sempers. 



T"\ 7"HEN do wild cucumber seeds germinate? By that I 

 *^ mean when is the normal time of germination? For 

 some years past I have been getting such surprising results un- 

 der conditions that were anything but normal that I have won- 

 dered what really are the natural habits of the plant when not 

 meddled with. 



We do not have the wild cucumber (Echinocystis lobata) 

 in a wild state here that I know of. Occasionally they are seen 

 planted as an ornament and are sometimes attacked by the wilt- 

 ing blight, a scourge that often plays havoc with cultivated 

 cucurbits. As a rule the seed that I have experimented 

 with has been old and the seed coats consequently have been 

 very hard and impervious to moisture. Therefore un- 

 less the seeds were clipped — that is, a small part of the seed 

 coats removed by filing, or unless subjected to freezing, very 

 few could be induced to sprout at all. 



It did not occur to me at first that frost could be consid- 

 ered in connection with the germinating of a cucurbit. Yet I 

 should have remembered that young plants of the watermelon 

 and squash have occasionally appeared the following year on 

 land occupied by such crops the previous season. I was reminded 

 of this, however, in an unusual way. It was my habit to throw 

 in a pile the refuse of seed tests, which consisted of the sand 

 used in making the tests together with the seeds that failed to 

 germinate and the seed coats of those that did. The piles fre- 

 quently remained undisturbed a year or more before being 

 removed. 



