424 STUDIES IN SEEDS AND FRUITS 



The rest- The rest-period therefore represents the failure of co- 



fromthe operation between the parent, the fruit, and the seed. Over 

 ortlSation of ^°*^ ^^^"^ ^"'^ ^^^^^ hangs the fate of ultimate detachment 

 the fruit and from the parent, and according as there is concurrence or not 

 the seed. K . ' • j o r i 



we get a viviparous or a resting seed, buccessiul co-operation 



ensures not only that before the fruit begins to dry the seeds 

 are ready to germinate, but also that the germinating seed 

 should quickly find suitable conditions for further growth, 

 either by the timely fall of the fruit or by the liberation of the 

 germinating seed. But even here in the great majority of 

 cases germination on the plant takes place in a dying or 

 decaying fruit. Nature is seen at her best in the co-ordination 

 of the growth forces of the fruit and the seed in those plants, 

 like the Mangroves {Rhizophora and Bruguiera), where the 

 fruit still lives and the seed still grows, until at length the 

 seedling drops from the mother plant. This is the truest 

 form of vivipary. 



But to return to the question of the lack of co-operation 

 between the seed and the fruit in the legume and capsule, 

 there is not much significance in the mere statement that 

 dehiscence occurs early in the capsule and late in the legume. 

 But there is a good deal of meaning when, viewing the 

 possibilities of vivipary, we state that dehiscence takes place 

 too early in the capsule and too late in the legume. If vivipary 

 took place in the capsule or in a legume, it would be under 

 the moist conditions illustrated in my experiments, where 

 soft, uncontracted pre-resting seeds were induced to germinate 

 without entering the resting stage. But in the capsule nature 

 defeats such an end by bringing about the early dehiscence of 

 the living fruit and the rapid drying of the exposed seeds. 

 In the legume nature would usually render such an event 

 impossible by bringing about the failure in the living but still 

 closed pod of the connection between the parent and the fruit. 

 The pod dries, the funicle shrivels, the seed shrinks and enters 

 the resting stage, and last of all the fruit dehisces. Regarded 

 from the possibility of vivipary, this therefore is the significance 



