THE PROPORTION OF PARTS IN FRUITS 313 



H. B. Guppy, p. 472) ; and there is to be cited in this 

 connection the well-known habit in the Pacific of suspending 

 the ripe fruits from a tree by a strip of the husk and leaving 

 them exposed to the weather until they germinate. Although 

 there is no evidence of vivipary in the case of the fruits of 

 Earringtonia speciosa, there are grounds for believing that the 

 fruits of an allied species (B. racemosa\ which are frequently 

 found germinating in the floating drift of the Rewa estuary 

 in Fiji, begin to germinate whilst hanging from the trees that 

 abound at the water-side (ibid.) pp. 564, 575). 



The discovery of this peculiarity in the growth of the Thedis- 

 acorn was made in this way. My attention was first directed the seed of* 

 to some anomaly in the growth by an impossible result the acorn 



produced by applying: a shrinking; ratio deduced from experi- growth after 



i J i r r 1 1 j i_ i the shell has 



ments on the drying or moist rull-sized nuts gathered in the begun to dry. 



middle of September, 1908, to fruits of the same tree well 

 dried after being kept some months. Since the moist fruits 

 in question lost just two-thirds of their weight whilst drying, 

 and since the dry acorns, gathered when ready to fall from 

 the cupule, now weighed from 30 to 40 grains in each case, it 

 followed from the application of the shrinking ratio that their 

 original weight as moist fruits must have been between 90 

 and 1 20 grains. As a matter of fact, from the tree concerned 

 I had rarely obtained moist nuts more than half this weight. 

 Influenced also by other considerations, 1 made a note at the 

 time that " it is not at present possible to obtain a satisfactory 

 shrinking ratio for the moist green acorn, since the kernel 

 apparently adds to its weight after the shell has ceased to grow 

 and has begun to dry." 



Strangely enough, although I had noticed on this and 

 neighbouring trees that whilst the acorns were still attached to 

 the cupule on the tree their seeds were in some cases splitting 

 their shells and in rare instances actually protruding the radicle, 

 the connection between the anomaly above described and the 

 vivipary did not then present itself. So the matter rested for 

 .a year and more, until, having found that a similar anomaly in 



