43 6 



STUDIES IN SEEDS AND FRUITS 



Vivipary in 



Artocarpus 

 incisa. 



Crinum. 



given that the detached fresh acorn does not need any water 

 from outside in order to proceed at once with the germinating 

 process. In fact, we have seen that such acorns will germinate 

 without a rest-period after losing a good proportion of their 

 weight by drying. Any check to the drying process of the 

 fresh detached nut would directly aid the seed in proceeding 

 continuously with its growth and in dispensing with the usual 

 period of repose. This check would be found in the inclusion 

 of acorns in ice. Drying would thus be inhibited, and the 

 acorn would have sufficient free water within its own substance 

 for the uninterrupted growth of the seed. 



For important particulars relating to the stages of growth 

 of the acorn the reader is referred to two tables given on 



PP- 303, 3 11 - 



Germination within the fruit on the tree may take place 



in the case of the seeded variety of the Bread Fruit (Artocarpus 

 incisa). This came under my notice in Grenada and Tobago. 

 Mr Anstead, the Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens in 

 Grenada, assured me that this habit was well known in the 

 island. In the case of a fruit that had just fallen I found a 

 third of the seeds (about sixty in all) germinating or " showing 

 eyes," as the coloured people call it. In another fruit that 

 had fallen the day before three-fourths of the seeds were 

 germinating. It was evident that germination began on the 

 tree in the ripe fruit ready to fall. With the ordinary seedless 

 variety suckers burst through the ground all around the tree. 

 They are absent altogether with the seeded kind. 



I made some observations on the viviparous habit of 

 detached Crinum seeds. This habit is well known, so that I 

 will refer the reader to Note 29 of the Appendix for my 

 remarks on the subject. Here, in the case of seeds packed 

 away in my collections, germination took place in seeds that 

 had lost more than half of their weight, the embryo increasing 

 its size ten- or fifteen-fold within the seed during the drying 

 process. 



