810 The American Naturalist. [September, 
germinate; there can be no third course.” But this is very 
fallacious reasoning, and is founded upon a misunderstanding 
of the nature of the seed. In the first place germination is not, 
even constructively, a function of maturity, as it readily occurs 
both before and after maturity. From our present standpoint, 
in whatever way the earlier writers may have viewed the mat- 
ter, a seed is simply a young plant enclosed in a protective 
covering derived from the parent plant, and accompanied by 
surplus nutriment. The resting condition of a seed is purely 
incidental and designed to aid in distribution and in guarding 
the plant against injury while very young. From the time of 
the first cell division in the forming embryo until the new in- 
dividual becomes established as a free growing plant, there 
need be no check in the continuous growth, except through 
untoward conditions, or inherent tendency to provide for such 
conditions. The germination of seeds inside the fruit of 
oranges, and gourds, and the ready growth of the mangrove, 
are familiar instances where the resting period has been prac- 
tically evaded, and development of the plantlet has been nearly 
or quite continuous 
In the growth of green seed we have a case where an attempt 
is made to give the plantlet the conditions for continued devel- 
opment without passing through the full protective stage. 
There is nothing in the nature of things, except the want of- 
skill, to prevent the plantlet being removed from the parent 
plant at any point in its early development, even before its 
organs can be detected, and by supplying it with the neces- 
sary nutriment, heat and moisture, and protecting it against 
_ the inroads of destructive organisms (bacteria, molds, etc.), se- 
curing to it by these artificial means the conditions for unin- 
terrupted growth, with the entire omission of the usual resting 
stage. 
With this view of the subject it is easy to explain why green 
seed generally gives fewer germinations as a rule than mature 
seed ; the more exacting conditions for its growth are not well 
met. And, further, it is evident that Cohn’s aphorism that a 
seed can only germinate or not germinate is saying that a seed 
can continue to grow or not continue to grow, and is thus 
robbed of all its mysticism. 
