26 L. Lesquereux on the Origin and Formation of Prairies. 
ity of the raspberry seeds, as quite an exceptional one. But on 
this subject, Prof. Ad, DeCandolle, who mentions the same fact, 
and who has studied more closely than any other botanist this — 
interesting question of the preservation of seeds, says: ‘‘ Prof, 
Lindley has quoted a species of Rosaceze (raspberry) whose seeds i 
were found in a human skeleton, which was believed to be some 
centuries old; but after verification of the fact, the seeds proved _ 
to be more recent.”"® |DeCandolle says nothing of that dulbous 
root found in the hands of a mummy and which produced a 
beautiful dahlia, rightly passing the fact, as one of those apocry- 
ied stories with which science had better not be encumbered. 
Not that the statement of Prof. Lindley is to be doubted; but 
that this celebrated botanist, too prone to believe stories in con-— 
firmation of his opinion, may have been misled by false accounts. 
We know of old that the merchants of Egyptian mummies are _ 
drift, as in a kind of Noah’s ark, especially provided for the 
** Alph. de Candolle Geogr. Bot., p. 541. 
ur 
- 
ere tee! 
