blossom, and which also I did not see, of 
aplant which the gardener could not de- 
te : _* 
— "On the 16th of August, M. L'Abbé An- 
= dierne took me to M. Rousseau's nursery- 
.. ground, whence I carried away the large 
.. plant of Heliotropium Europeum, from 
which those specimens in flower and seed 
had been gathered which M. Andierne had 
. already transmitted to me. In the same 
_ plot Isaw several young plants of Medi- 
cago lupulina, they were stil without 
flower, bearing each only three or four 
ves, 
It is certainly to be greatly regretted 
that such an interesting experiment should 
not have been made with all the precau- 
tions necessary for avouching its irrefrag- 
i able authenticity. Thus, it would have 
.. been highly desirable to ascertain what the 
. Seeds were, previously to sowing them; 
_ forit may be suspected, at first, that those 
which were put into the ground by M. 
Andierne never have sprung up, and that 
| the plants which we. gathered, instead of 
d being the produce of parent-stems that 
E shad blossomed fifteen or sixteen hundred 
_ Yeats ago, were simply the offspring of 
seeds recently deposited in the garden. 
But I may reply to this, in the first place, 
that though Heliotropium Europeum and 
Medicago lupulina do spring up abund- 
antly in carefully cultivated soil, it is not 
50 with the Blue Bottle, which is gene- 
rally found in the fields. 
Secondly, that the larger proportion 
of the seeds found in the coffin were of a 
greenish tinge, and that the seeds of the 
" » Surrounded by their calyx as 
ve gathered them, on the plant above men- 
Pes Were recognised by M. Rousseau, 
na to those which had been sown. 
having E That a portion of these seeds 
ia: 3 sown in pots to prevent any 
Ce ^p plants in the pots and the 
hit bea, were identical, thus proving 
duit came from the one and the same 
oe 
a. curthly and lastly, that even supposing 
: .. were defective, and that none 
Plants were the produce of the seeds 
INFORMATION RESPECTING SEEDS FOUND IN ROMAN TOMBS. 
295 
that M. Andierne had set, still the princi- 
pal and most important fact, that of. their 
ermination, would not be in the least af- 
fected, but would remain indisputably au- 
thentic, because M. Andierne was only 
induced to deposit these seeds in the 
ground, because he had no hope of pre- 
serving them as they were, they having 
germinated precipitately, as soon as they 
came in contact with the air. 
The above facts, therefore, establish the 
position, that certain kinds of seeds, if 
entirely excluded from the agents needful 
or vegetation, or rather, if shielded from 
the combination of influences requisite for 
germination, will maintain their vital pro- 
perty uninjured for the space of fifteen or 
sixteen centuries, and display it afresh 
when placed in favourable circumstances. 
I say the combination of those influences 
which are necessary for germination; for 
warmth and moisture have doubtless ex- 
isted in this case, sufficient to call into ac- 
tion the germinating principle in seeds, 
which could only be neutralized by the 
absence of the third requisite, namely, 
contact with the atmospheric air. From 
this reflection we must conclude that facts 
of this nature are far more common than 
is generally supposed, and that observation 
is all that we want on this point, as on 
many others. The theory of Silos is cer- 
tainly based on this principle ; but as the. 
object there was an artificial preservation, 
attained by the prudent employment of 
numerous precautions, it seems to have 
been long imagined that analogous facts 
were rarely found in nature. Still, in 
1824, M. Dureau de la Malle, in his valu- 
able ** Mémoire sur l' Alternance" (publish- 
ed in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 
lst series, vol. 5. p. 353 et seq.) has con- 
futed this error by adducing numerous 
facts, all presenting the same combination 
of circumstances as what I am now describ- 
ing, namely, the presence, to a requisite 
degree of warmth and moisture, and 
absence of a sufficient quantity of air. 
From the observations of the above-men- 
tioned savant, the following results have 
been obtained, that in the Birch, Aspen, 
