41 



a sample of exceptionally large Douglas Fir seed from Wenatchee, 

 the eastern slopes of the Cascade Range in the north east part of 

 the State of Washington; a sample which was brought back by a 

 Danish Botanist from a tour in the United States in 1911. 



The test gave the following result: Seed weight 15.12 grams, 

 germination 10 %, 22 / , 51 % and 63 %, in 10, 20, 30 and 50 days 

 respectively. This not very high germination result makes one 

 suspect defective cleaning; presumably there were many empty 

 seeds present, otherwise the seed weight might have been consider- 

 ably higher, for the seed was remarkable at first sight for the 

 size of its grains. In the last three years my ordinary trade seed 

 from the State of Washington weighed as follows: 190809 11.7, 

 190910 13.9, and 191112 10.4 grams. Last year the seed was not 

 as well cleaned as in previous years, as is shown by the seed weight. 



Whether the seed of this species from the most southerly part 

 of its range, the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range of California, 

 is larger than that from northern regions, as generally is the case 

 in other species, I do not precisely know. I can hardly believe so; 

 for in not a single case have the examinations of previous years 

 shown seed of particularly large grains, and it would have been 

 remarkable if, as at that time I was receiving seed through a New 

 York seed dealer, I never once received seed of Californian origin. 

 Since 1902 I have received the seed each year direct from the State 

 of Washington, and the highest seed weight 13.9 was in 1909 the 

 highest and lowest seed weight in the first 14 years, when the 

 seed was often poorly cleaned, was 12.4 and 7.5 grams.* 



When we examine the germination of the Douglas Fir seed, we 

 find a remarkable difference in the germinating capacity and ger- 

 minating energy of the two species, the green Coast Douglas and 

 the grey Rocky Mountain Douglas; the latter is always the better. 



Highest and lowest germination in 5 10 20 30 days 



The Green species 38 6315 7043 7650 



The Grey species 7536 9270 9475 9476 



* After the above statement had been published in the Danish and German editions of this work, 

 appeared in Nov. 1912 and Jan. 1913 respectively, I received in March 1913, from a seed collector in Cali- 

 fornia, a small lot of Douglas "from almost due East of San Francisco, altitude 40005000 feet", and 

 found the seed weight to be 22.6 grams and the percentage of seeds capable of germinating 71 /o (the 

 germinating capacity was, in 21 days: 31 |o and in 56 days: 51 /o and 20/ of sound but not yet germi- 

 nated seeds; the germinating energy was but weak.) The seed weight was accordingly twice as great as 

 the mean weight (10.3) of the whole 32 samples of the green Coast Douglas examined by me in the past 

 25 years. Hence it would seem that there is after all, a Southern big-grained variety of Douglas, a point 

 which will be further investigated in future years. 



