NOTES ON RECENT RESEARCH. 



259 



Sandringham in the gardens of II.R.H. the Prince of Wales, now ELM. 

 the King, and when cut open on the table at Marlborough House the 

 interior was seen to be filled with well-developed seedlings, as shown in 

 the figure. The specimen was so striking that it was eventually pre- 

 served in spirit and placed in the Kew Museums." Further examples 

 exhibiting the same condition wen; supplied from the same source, and 

 these were submitted to careful examination by Mr. Horace Brown, 

 F.R.S., who was working in the Jodrell Laboratory. He found that " the 

 cotyledonary leaves of several plantlets measured H inch long and 1| 

 inch across, and were of a light green colour. The hypocotyls were 

 about 2 inches long and J inch in diameter. The roots were well 

 developed, with secondary root fibres up to l , inch in length. . . . Tn one 

 instance a tap root was found to have actually penetrated tin; solid 

 parenchyma of the pericarp to a depth of about £ inch, considerable 

 force being required to withdraw it. . . . Penetration of the pericarp by 

 the roots seemed to have occurred only in exceptional cases ; for the most 

 part they ramified amid the placentas and the broken-down ovarian 

 tissue, from which they seem to have derived their nourishment. The 

 dry weight of the plantlets far exceeded that of the seeds from which they 

 were produced. . . . The dry weight of one of the plantlets was 0*1929 

 gram, or about twenty times the weight of the seed from which it sprang. 

 ... I think the amount of chlorophyll present must be very small. It 

 does not give a strong coloration to the alcohol in which the plants are 

 immersed, and what little green there is fades rapidly on exposure to 

 light." The author writes : " Whether the small amount of chlorophyll 

 present in the Melon seedlings was effective functionally to an appreciable 

 extent may be doubted. The chemical changes which took place in the 

 interior of the fruit would be accompanied by the evolution of carbonic 

 acid, which would probably be present in any part of the internal cavity 

 not occupied by fluid in greater proportion than in atmospheric air. But 

 the illumination of the seedlings would be too feeble to allow of its being 

 fixed and decomposed. On the whole the nutrition of the seedlings 

 closely approached that of a saprophyte. What is, however, noteworthy 

 is that it must have been practically anaerobic. At any rate, it is evident 

 that the working up of the disintegrated tissues of the parent Melon into 

 new living tissue required a minimum amount of oxygen." Mr. A. 

 Mackeliar, who grew the Melons, wrote Sir William that " no doubt the 

 cause of the seeds germinating and growing in the Melons is the unusinil 

 length of time the Melons have kept fresh. I have seen seeds germinated 

 in a Melon before, but not so far developed as in this case." The author 

 of the paper refers to the precocious germination of seeds in the Orange 

 and other species of Citrus, and in the Papaw (Carica Papaya), Ho 

 observes that in the vast majority of cases seeds remain dormant for a 

 considerable time after maturity, and says that this is no doubt an adap- 

 tive character which has been acquired in order to facilitate fcheir disper- 

 sion to considerable distances. " It might be expected, therefore, that in 

 the case of gregarious plants, whose seeds grow where they fall, pre- 

 cocious germination might occur. It is actually met. with amongst the 

 Dipterocarpea ; Blume figures a case in Dipterocarpus ret anus. It is 

 especially characteristic of the Mangroves (Iihizophorca)." The case of 



