VITALITY OF SEEDS. 



461 



connects the fruit or seed with the parent plant undergoes marked 

 changes, which ultimately effect or permit complete separation 

 of the seed from the plant without any injury. The process of 

 separation has been compared to that by which the leaf is de- 

 tached from the branch in the autumn. 



1197. How long can a seed retain its yitality? Some seeds 

 perish shortly after separation from the parent unless they are 

 at once planted, while others preserve their vitality for long 

 periods. In experiments by De Candolle seeds of three hun- 

 dred and sixty-eight species of plants were kept in the same 

 place and under the same conditions for fifteen years. The 

 following results are recorded: 



1 came up, or 100 per cent. 



Of 1 Balsaminaceae 



" 50 

 " 20 

 " Si 



lOMalvaceje 5 



45 Leguminosse 9 



30 Labiate 1 



10 Scrophulariacese 



10 Umbellifene 



16 Caryophyllaceae 



32 Gramineae 



34 Cruciferae 



45 Composite 



1198. Daubeny, Henslow, and Lindley found that the seeds 

 of a species of Colutea germinated when forty-three years old, and 

 those of a Coronilla when forty-two years old. They ascertained 

 that the seeds of plants belonging to twent} 7 genera experimented 

 on, germinated after from twenty to twenty-nine years' separa- 

 tion from the parent plant. 1 



There is no unquestioned evidence that wheat-grains from the 

 wrappings of mummies have been made to germinate. 2 



1 Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1850, 

 p. 165. 



2 The following notes of cases of prolonged vitality may be of interest : 

 M. R. Brown ra'a dit avoir fait germer des graines de Nelumbium specio- 



sum extraites par lui de 1'herbier de Sloane, c'est-a-dire ayant au moins 150 

 ans (De Candolle: Geographic Botanique raisonnee, 1855, p. 542). 



Seeds of Nelumbium (jaune) have sprouted after they had been in the ground 

 for a century (Lyell's Second Visit to the United States, ii., 1849, p. ?28). 



The grains of wheat found in mummy-wrappings are uniformly blackened 

 as if by slow charring (eremacausis), and there is no evidence of a trustworthy 

 character that such seeds have ever been made to germinate. The account 

 by Count von Steinberg of the germination of wheat supposed to have been 

 procured at the unrolling of a mummy will be found in Isis, 1836, col. 

 715-717. 



