LUTHER BURBANK 



limit of suspended vitality. The fact that ger- 

 mination began, but that it did not continue 

 because of lack of a central bud, suggests that 

 degeneration of part of the substance of the seed 

 had taken place. Seemingly it was only the most 

 resistent seeds that were able to stand this degen- 

 erative process, and retain unimpaired vitality to 

 the end of the nineteenth year. The heredity of 

 those that grew was preserved intact: the seeds 

 producing exactly such plants and fruit as if they 

 had been planted nineteen years before. 

 The Vitality of Seeds 



The interesting question arises as to whether 

 the degeneration of germinal matter was confined 

 entirely to the store of nutrient substance in which 

 the germinating nuclei of the future plant are 

 imbedded, or whether it included any portion of 

 the germinating structure itself. 



The fact that failure to continue growth — ^in 

 the case of the seeds that put forth cotyledons and 

 then died — was due to a lack of the central bud 

 that usually puts forth between the cotyledons, 

 suggests that the germinal substance itself was 

 impaired. Of course this germinal matter is of 

 tangible, even if very minute, size and there is no 

 apparent reason why it might not be impaired as 

 to a portion of its substance. 



Conceivably, the substance of the complex 



[124] 



