208 On the Duration of 
The spirit of wine contained a quantity of acetate of 
potash. 
The excess of alkali, in this English ulmin, may he 
owing to the tree from which it was collected naving been 
affected with the disease which proiuces the alkaline ulcer 
to which the elm is subject. 
Sap of the Elm Tree. 
Thinking that the production of ulmin by the plant 
might not be the consequence of disease, and that it might 
exist in the healthy sap, a bit of elm twig, gathered in the 
beginning of last July, was cut into thin slices and boiled 
in water. It afforded a brown solution, like a solution of 
ulmin. Exhaled to dryness, this solution left a dark-brown 
substance, in appearance similar to ulmins; but on adding 
water to this dry mass, a large quantity of brown glutinous 
matter remained insoluble. The mixture being thrown on 
a filter, a clear yellow liquor passed, which may have con- 
tained ulmin ; but the quantity was too small to admit of 
satisfactory conclusions. 
Perhaps older wood, the juice of which was more per- 
fected, would afford other results, since ulmin appears to be 
the product of old trees; but the inquiry, being merely 
collateral to the object I had originally in view, was not 
persevered in. 
XXXVI. On the Duration of the germinalwe Faculty of 
Seeds. By M. Saint HIvarre*. 
Ir is tolerably well ascertained that the seeds of some 
species of plants preserve their germinative faculty for se- 
veral years, that great numbers lose it at the end of a few 
months, and that it is even necessary to sow some kinds 
immediately after their maturity. But we have too 
scanty materials on which to found any opinion upon 
the species, genera or families which enjoy for a longer or 
shorter tine this faculty, or which lose it speedily. Ex- 
perienced gardeners have nevertheless certain data upon 
this subject, and the following may be regarded as perhaps 
the most satisfactory : 
- 6¢ The seeds,” says M. Dumont de Courset, “ of the la- 
biated umbelliferous plants, and of those which contain a 
nucleus or a kernel, in general all the aromatics, asteriz, 
irides, fraxinella, aconita, dauphinellz, and of those of a 
- great many bulbous plants, and most of the large trees, rise 
* Mag. Encycl, May 1811, p. 89, ; 
much 
