BRIEFER ARTAGRES 
THE SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS OF SOME AMENTIFERAE 
(WITH PLATE XXIX) 
APPARENTLY few observations have been recorded upon the seed- 
lings of this group. Sir John Lubbock? briefly describes seedlings of 
Juglans and Pterocarya, and some representatives of the different 
genera of the Fagacee and Betulacee. There has been much con- 
fusion regarding the seeds of the Juglandacez. De Candolle? inter- 
preted the parts of the embryo correctly, as did Kronfeld* and 
Lubbock, but most writers on systematic botany have misunderstood 
them. The seeds and seedlings studied represented the following 
genera: Juglans, Hicoria, F agus, Castanea, and Quercus. Some of the 
seedlings were grown in moss in the greenhouse and were not sub- 
jected to frost action or cracking. Other seedlings of the same 
Species were grown in the garden from seeds planted in the fall. 
Juglans nigra and J. cinerea were the only ones that would not grow in 
the greenhouse. T hey obviously required the frost action to break 
their shells. 
JUGLANDACE®. As is well known, the fruit in this family is a nut, 
enclosed in a fleshy pericarp, endosperm is absent, and the embryo is 
straight. The pericarp ruptures into four valves in Hicoria and is 
normally indehiscent in Juglans. The wall of the nut is bony and 
Splits into two valves on germinating. The embryo is large and 
fleshy, two large lobes which appear like cotyledons stand erect on a 
short hypocotyl. De Candolle* well describes the condition: “The 
cotyledons are always opposed to the valves of the nut, each of the 
chambers in the nut contains the halves of two different cotyledons.” 
In Hicoria, the cotyledons are two-parted and intricately folded, and 
a lobe of one cotyledon unites with a lobe of the other by a peculiar 
* LUBBOCK, SIR JouHN: A contribution to our knowledge of seedlings. 
*CANDOLLE, C. DE: Mémoire sur la famille des Juglandées. 
3 KRONFELD, M.: Beitrige zur Kenntniss der Walnuss. 
; DE CANDOLLE, of, cit. 
1898 349 
