CHAPTER XX 



THE COSMIC ADAPTATION OF THE SEED 



Intro- 

 ductory. 



The seed is 

 less special- 

 ised and less 

 conditioned 

 than the 

 plant. 



The physics of seeds ought to be a subject of deep interest, if 

 only from the circumstance that whilst the seeds, generally 

 speaking, can live or retain their vitality in any climate, the 

 parent plant is as a rule rigidly restricted in this respect. The 

 fact that the seed is less specialised for terrestrial conditions 

 than the parent plant is one of the first suggestions that nature 

 offers to us when we approach the consideration of seeds from 

 the cosmic standpoint. It is one of the purposes of this 

 chapter to extend this distinction by showing that seeds might 

 live on a planet where conditions destructive for the parent 

 plant prevail. Where the discussion appears disconnected and 

 inconsistent, the defect is usually due to the circumstance that 

 I have here strung together notes and ideas jotted down 

 generally during botanical rambles in the last four years. To 

 endeavour to adjust some of them would be to displace others, 

 so I have preferred to let them stand, feeling assured that in 

 the opening up of new ground of this sort the reader will be 

 to my faults a little blind. 



It was the behaviour of the seed of Guilandina bonducella in 

 the oven and in the balance that first led me into these specula- 

 tions. The spectacle of a plant-embryo living its own life in 

 its hermetically sealed case and irresponsive to outside con- 

 ditions seemed to ofFer a near approach to an unconditioned 

 existence on this planet. Though crude and only partly true, 

 this notion proved to be very suggestive ; and I came to see 



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