420 STUDIES IN SEEDS AND FRUITS 



different stages of incompleteness. In others it is ready to 

 germinate. No one has stated the matter more clearly than 

 Goebel, and to no one are we indebted for a more authoritative 

 discussion of the subject. It is indeed quite a commonplace 

 feature in seed-life, and I hesitate to add the results of my own 

 observations on a matter long recognised. The data supplied 

 by Goebel in his Organography of Plants (ii. 248-254) supply 

 a most important lead for the investigator. Differences of this 

 kind we are wont to associate with a genus or a family, but 

 here we learn that, as in Anemone and Utricularia^ they may be 

 found within the limits of a species and even in the same 

 individual. 



We are told that we can only conjecture about the causes 

 of this behaviour ; but the problem restricted to such narrow 

 limits presents an inviting field for the investigator. As will 

 be subsequently pointed out in other plants, the differences 

 in the degree of development of the embryo in these cases is 

 probably associated with the displacement of the period of 

 fruit-maturation as regards the seed. Thus, I would suppose 

 that when the embryo in the resting seed is able to produce its 

 cotyledons and even its first leaves, the fruit is much later in 

 maturing than when the embryo is merely an " unsegmented 

 acotyledonous body." We should then have to inquire into 

 the causes of the postponement or acceleration of the matura- 

 tion of the fruit with reference to the seed and its embryo. 



But before discussing this view of the matter I will adduce 

 further evidence in support of the contention that embryos, 

 whatever may be their stage of development in the resting 

 seed, are inherently able to continue the growth suspended 

 through the intervention of the rest-period. This is of course 

 implied for many plants in the after-ripening of their seeds 

 and in the occasional premature germination of seeds on the 

 plant during exceptionally humid weather ; but I desire now 

 to show that all seeds, or rather their embryos, possess an 

 inherent capacity of dispensing with the rest-period. That the 

 embryo of an albuminous seed is able to continue its growth 



