Forest Club Annual 



TERMINOLOGY. 



First a discussion of seed testing terminology, which at pre- 

 sent is in a state of confusion owing to the use of the same 

 terms to express entirely different meanings, is essential. The 

 term final germination per cent or per cent of final germination 

 is perfectly clear, being the number of fertile seeds compared to 

 the total number involved, based on a unit of 100. Thus if 

 any lot of seeds is said to have a final germination per cent of 

 80, this indicates that 80 seeds are capable and 20 seeds incap- 

 able of germinating out of the total 100, or in other words, there 

 are 80 fertile seeds to every 20 sterile ones. However, germina- 

 tive capacity has crept into use to express practically this same 

 meaning. Bates* uses this term but sets a time limit on the 



*. Bates, C. G. : Technique of Seed Testing. Proceedings of the Society 

 of American Foresters, 8:136, 137. 



duration of the test so that germinative capacity is practically, 

 but not actually, final germination per cent. At the Eberswalde 

 seed establishment** in Germany germinative force ("Keim- 



**Wiebecke: Anwendung neuer Erkennens auf die Kiefernsamendarre. 

 Zeitschrift fur Forst und Jagdwesen, 42:356. 



kraft") is used instead of germinative capacity in Bates' sense. 

 Lorey***, on the other hand, considers germinative capacity 



***Lorey: Handbuch der Forstwissenschaft. 2:524. 



merely as the ability of seeds to germinate without considering 

 the factor of the number or per cent possessing this ability. 

 This is logical, and it would seem that the use of the term, 

 germinative capacity, in any other sense introduces concepts 

 not expressed by the word capacity. Germinative capacity, then, 

 to us means that the seeds possess the ability to germinate, while 

 final germination per cent expresses the relative number that will 

 germinate based on a unit of one hundred. In reality it is 

 seldom that a germination test is permitted to run the length of 

 time necessary to allow all fertile seeds to germinate, since 

 there are always a few seeds that will germinate at long in- 

 tervals after germination seems complete, and it is rarely neces- 

 sary for the result sought to use valuable space in the germina- 

 tion apparatus for such a long period. After making a number 

 of tests with various species, an average length of time can be 

 established for each species when germination has apparently 

 ceased. Then the ungerminated seeds can be removed from the 



