2 STUDIES IN SEEDS AND FRUITS 



exploring voyage in a little-known ocean where the lead rarely 

 reaches the ocean's floor and " two thousand fathoms and no 

 bottom" is a frequent record. Just as during my sojourn in 

 the Pacific, the study of seed-buoyancy led me finally to discuss 

 the history of the whole flora of those islands, so this work has 

 been developed by slow degrees from my original observations 

 on the vivipary of plants in that region. The possibility of 

 all seeds being able to germinate on the plant presented itself 

 to me whilst observing on the Hawaiian lava-plains the be- 

 haviour of the seeds of Guilandina bonducella in the green 

 pod ; and this led me to the study of the rest-period of seeds. 

 But at first, to employ another simile, it was like a plunge 

 into the depths of a primeval forest. My path branched ofF 

 in a hundred different ways, tracks crossing and re-crossing 

 and often leaving me in some tangled jungle. Instead of 

 simplicity I found complexity, my inquiries taking me in all 

 kinds of unexpected directions, the difficulty lying in the choice 

 and in knowing when to retrace my steps. However, ulti- 

 mately I emerged from the forest at a place far distant from 

 where I entered, and have now the story of my experiences 

 to tell. 



Perhaps I shall best explain the discursive character of this 

 work and the variety of subjects handled, if I state briefly the 

 various stages of my investigations. When observing the 

 maturation and germination of the seeds of Guilandina bondu- 

 cella in 1897 in Hawaii {Observations of a Naturalist in the 

 Pacific^ ii. 191), I noted that in germinating these stone-like 

 seeds assumed again the appearance of immaturity. The soft, 

 moist seed from the green unopened pod and the soft, swollen 

 seed on the eve of germination were both of them two or 

 three times the size of the normal resting seed, and might at 

 first sight be mistaken for each other. Surely, I argued, it 

 would be possible, in the case of the seeds of this and other 

 leguminous plants, by subjecting the pod on the plant to 

 warm, humid conditions, to dispense with the rest-period 

 altogether, and to bring about the germination on the plant of 



