•Tl,;...-i- 



■■i^-!r~TT.!nqwT^»^-J"'**«'^^J(ff,.'J"^fl!PllWl^"W<)*^ 



94 



The Florists^ Review 



May 11, 1922 



ing discussion of the subject appears in 

 the latest issue of the Missouri Botan- 

 ical Garden Bulletin. 



Does Respiration Occur? 



Some seeds retain their vitality but 

 a few days. Others, if properly pre- 

 served, will germinate after years, and 

 possibly, in rare cases, a century or 

 more may pass before they are lifeless. 

 In any case a fundamental question 

 concerning the state of the living mat- 

 ter in a dormant seed remains to be 

 answered. Are vital processes slowly 

 but continuously going on within a seed 

 or is everything at a standstill? Orig- 

 inally it was believed, because seed 

 could be immersed in various toxic sub- 

 stances or kept in a vacuum for a year 

 or two without loss of vitality, that 

 there could be no gaseous exchange be- 

 tween the contents of the seed and the 

 outside, says the article. Some inves- 

 tigators contended that respiration, that 

 is, taking in of oxygen and giving out 

 of carbon dioxide, continually takes 

 place in dry seeds just as it goes on 

 in living plants and animals. Certain 

 experiments seem to prove that seeds 

 can exist for a considerable time with- 

 out any gaseous exchange with the out- 

 side worldj since their walls have be- 

 come absolutely air-tight. Hence, if 

 there are any changes going on, each 

 cell must be living on its own supplies, 

 and the life of the seed is necessarily 

 limited to the length of time required 

 to use up such a source of energy. If, 

 on the other hand, a dried seed has 

 really entered into a state of "static 

 equilibrium, ' ' in which no change what- 

 ever takes place, it should be capable of 

 retaining its vitality indefinitely. 



Becquerel prepared seeds by perforat- 

 ing their outer coats and drying them 

 completely, after which they were placed 

 in a high vacuum and deposited with the 

 Bureau of Standards in Paris. They are 

 to be tested every ten years, and ulti- 

 mately we may know how nearly seeds 

 are immortal. 



Evidences of Extreme Viability. 



Since plants unquestionably have ap- 

 peared in regions where they were pre- 

 viously unknown, after the soil had been 

 opened up by digging or dredging, it 

 was concluded that the seeds must have 

 been preserved alive for long periods, 

 because buried more or less deeply in 

 the earth. Of course, there has never 

 been adequate supervision of such cases, 

 and invariably it has been found that 

 the plants recorded as appearing under 

 such conditions do not have particularly 

 long-lived seed, at least when preserved 

 in air. Eather extensive experiments 

 have further demonstrated that it is not 

 true that seeds preserve their vitality 

 longer if buried in the soil, but that 

 they will keep much better in air if per- 

 fectly dry. 



The appearance of unusual plants in 

 regions cleared by forest fires has been 

 regarded as another evidence of the ex- 

 treme viability of seed. "While it is 

 true that some seeds which have lain 

 dormant in the earth for a considerable 

 length of time may be germinated 

 through the heating of the ground, 

 there is no authority for the idea that 

 plants originating under such circum- 

 stances have come from seeds which 

 have lain in the soil an extraordinary 

 length of time. The possibility of their 

 being carried by birds or other animals, 

 or by wind or flood, cannot be disre- 

 garded. 



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