TRANSPORTATION OF CASTILLA SEEDS. 57 



in circumference a yard from the ground, and in 1881 they flowered 

 for the first time. The first flowers were all staminate, but a few seeds 

 were produced in 1882, and these and their successors have furnished 

 the basis of the experiments with Castilla in the East Indies. The 

 relatively unfavorable results may be due, at least in part, to the fact 

 that the Panama tree is different from that of Mexico and Guatemala, 

 which was sent to the East Indies only in recent years, after better 

 methods of packing the seeds had been learned. 



The preservation of the seeds depends upon their being kept moist 

 enough to remain alive and at the same time dry enough to discourage 

 germination. Some advise washing the seeds; others leave the pulp 

 adhering, but the latter course has the disadvantage of encouraging 

 the growth of molds and bacteria, which readily penetrate the thin 

 outer membranes and attack the embryo itself. Several packing 

 materials, such as leaf mold, sand, and sawdust have been suggested, 

 but the best is probably powdered charcoal, which does not decompose 

 nor harbor organisms. 



The following statements from some who have experimented with 

 shipment of Castilla seeds may be of suggestive interest: 



In Trinidad they are gathered when fully mature, washed, and slightly dried in 

 the shade. They are then shipped in a sort of humus composed of fibers of rotten 

 cocoanut husks and a little earth. This mixture must be somewhat moist. The 

 seeds soon germinate in it and so remain for several weeks. Sowing must be done 

 with great care on account of the long sprouts. 



I also collected the mature seeds and washed them thoroughly, so that no trace of 

 the fleshy red pulp remained on them. Then they were dried in the shade from 

 twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and then mixed with sawdust and packed in 

 small tin boxes 10 centimeters (4 inches) square and 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) deep. 

 I dropped a few drops of water on the sawdust before closing the box. With this 

 packing the seeds were sent to Berlin, and from there forwarded to Kamerun and 

 East Africa, and 50 per cent of them were on arrival still good and in condition 

 to germinate." 



A shipment of 2,000 Castilla seeds sent from Paris to Peradeniya, 

 Ceylon, packed in leaf mold in four tin boxes, was opened in six weeks, 

 to find 37 per cent still alive and the remainder destroyed by molds 

 and bacteria. This made it evident that leaf mold was not a desirable 

 medium and sterilized sand was suggested instead. 6 



The seeds were carefully cleaned of all pulp, and then dried slightly in the shade 

 and packed in shallow tins with powdered charcoal slightly damp. By this method 

 they commence to germinate in the tins. Care must be taken that the seeds do not 

 touch each other, for if too many are packed together it will cause heating and the 

 loss of the whole. c 



«Dr. Paul Preuss, Expedition nach Central- und Sud-Amerika, 1901, p. 383. 

 &Agric. Bui., Straits Settlements, 1:580. Dec, 1902. 



c Letter from Mr. W. S. Todd, Amherst, Lower Burma, to Mr. Edgar Brown, in 

 charge of Seed Investigations, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



