Prolonged Vitality of Seeds. 89 



PROLONGED VITALITY OF SEEDS. 



The article on Fossil Botany for the present month is una- 

 voidably omitted, and in its place we present the reader with 

 the following interesting anecdotes, illustrating the great length 

 of time during which the vitality of seeds is sometimes re- 

 tained. 



The seeds of most plants are endowed with a remarkable 

 power of preserving their vitality for an almost unlimited time, 

 when they are placed in circumstances which neither call their 

 properties into active exercise, nor occasion the decay of their 

 structure. The conditions most favorable for this preservation 

 are a low or moderate temperature, dryness of the surround- 

 ing medium, and the absence of oxygen. If all these be ar- 

 ranged in the most favorable manner, there seems no limit to 

 the period for which seeds will retain the power of performing 

 their vital operations. Even if moisture or oxygen be not en- 

 tirely excluded, the same result may take place, provided the 

 temperature be low and uniform. Thus many seeds may be 

 kept for several years, freely exposed to the air, if they are 

 not permitted to become damp, in which case they will either 

 germinate or decay. Some of those which had been kept 

 in the seed-vessels of plants belonging to the herbarium of 

 Tounefort, a French botanist, were found to retain their fertili- 

 ty after the lapse of nearly a century. Frequent instances 

 have happened, in which ground, recently turned up, has 

 spontaneously produced plants different from any in their 

 neighborhood. Undoubtedly this is owing, in some cases, to 

 the seeds having been deposited there by the wind, or by other 

 means, and growing because they have found a congenial soil • 

 but there are authentic facts which can only be explained on 

 the principle that the seeds of the newly appearing plants have 

 lam for a long period imbedded in the earth, at such a distance 

 from the surface as to prevent the access of air and moisture 

 and that they have been excited to germination by exposure to 

 the atmosphere. To the westward of Stirling in Scotland 



