4 86 



STUDIES IN SEEDS AND FRUITS 



and their average dry weight was 44 grains, indicating a reduction of 

 76 per cent. Now if we assume that the eight pods gathered dry 

 from the plant had about the same original moist weight as respects 

 their pericarp, then their average dry weight of 25 grains represents a 

 reduction in weight during the drying process of about 86 per cent. 

 These results, though rough, are probably near the truth, experiments 

 made in widely removed localities in the West Indies giving closely 

 similar indications. They are summed up in the following table : 



I have here only touched the fringe of an interesting subject, and 

 perhaps some investigator may be induced to take up this inquiry. The 

 two changes in colour which green moist legumes experience whilst dry- 

 ing on and off the plant, a blackening or darkening as in Faba, Vicia^ etc., 

 and a partial bleaching as in Pisum^ Canavalia^ etc., may be brought into 

 some kind of relation with the coloration of the seeds, a matter discussed 

 in Chapter XVII. Such an inquiry would have to be approached from 

 the physical and chemical as well as from the biological side. 



NOTE 17 (p. 320). 



COMPARISON OF THE CAPSULES OF PRIMULA VERIS (PRIMROSE) AND OF 

 SWIETENIA MAHOGANI (MAHOGANY) AS REGARDS THE WEIGHT- 

 PROPORTION OF THE PLACENTAL Axis OR COLUMELLA, THE LIVING 

 FRUIT OF THE FIRST-NAMED WEIGHING ABOUT 4 GRAINS AND OF 

 THE SECOND ABOUT 6000 GRAINS. 



