62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



geniiiiiale in a week or more alter the t\iit ones, but witli sunk 

 seeds I could detect no sucli ditVerence, presumably because the 

 internal \\ater-sup|)ly bad saturated the whole endosperm before 

 tlie arrival ol' the time for germination. 



Seeds in their second year gave the same general average as 

 those in their lirst, namely 20 per cent.: thus, taking two years 

 together, 30 seedlings would be the total average yield of every 

 hundred seeds of the harvest of any given year, but more evidence 

 is desirable anent second-year gern)ination. Third-year germina- 

 tion is in all probability never accomplished successfully, 1 have 

 on several occasions raised sickly weaklings, but none of them 

 have ever lived through the autumn. 



Seedlings from seeds which germinated while still afloat among 

 other flotsam can be distniguished readily from those horn in mud 

 by possessing a long, branched chlorophyllous radicle, as well 

 as curved and hooked adventitious roots. Securing adequate 

 anchorage is their chief dilliculty, which, however, does not trouble 

 the mud seedling, whose seed is buried before germination, espe- 

 cially as the liypogeal cotyledon remains in the endospern) and 

 the hypocotyl is not developed. Seeds in mud, either under wafer 

 or not, owe their burial to a covering of dead leaves or debris and 

 also to being trodden in by birds and mammals, and it is worth 

 remenibeiing in this connection that dis|iersal in dead leaves has 

 thus great advantage for the seedling, that worms are always 

 dragging them underground and so burying and anchoring in tlie 

 soil the seeds that they contain. The radicle being poor in root- 

 hairs, naked seeds or mud without any overlying wafer fail or 

 succeed according to its hardness. Those on mud under water 

 constantly perisli because of its extreme softness, especially when 

 the dei)tli of the water exceeds a few inches; on the other hand, 

 whetlier under water or not, they are frequently held down by an 

 overlay of debris, and are therefore able to strike root. 



The floater is exposed to many and great dangers. It may be 

 carried out to sea only to perish, and if it be solitary upon fresh 

 water clear of debris it is probably doomed; it lies flat, is unable 

 to erect itself or take root, and perishes. If, however, it drifts 

 on to mud it will root i-eadily enough. Floating together or in 

 debris the seedlings erect themselves by the action of the hooked 

 adventitious roots. In my experiments the four or five adven- 

 titious roots of the solitary floater did not become either curved 

 or hooked, suggesting that this condition is a useful response to 

 the stimulus of contact. It is interesting to note that the 

 floating seedling, sunk subsequently under 7 inches of water, 

 succeeded, whereas the offspring of seeds sown at the same 

 de]jfh perished. 



The height attained by seedlings from first-year seeds, during 

 their first season up to Christmas, varies from 2 inches in leaf- 

 measurement for the unanchored solitary flat floater to L'J inches 

 in saturated nnul ; but seedlings from seeds in their second year, 

 sown in saturated mud, produced leaves 19 to 19J inches long. 



