298 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
were not lost. The capsules were afterwards 
spread out to dry on the same sheets, and the 
drying occupied from two to ten days. The first 
seeds were gathered at Limon on the 14th, and the 
last on the 29th of August. Early in September 
they were all dry. 
Mr. Cross sowed, on the i6th of August, eight 
of the seeds I had gathered ; one of them began to 
germinate on the fourth day, and at the end of a 
fortnight four seeds had pushed their radicles. On 
the 6th of September one had the seed-leaves com- 
pletely developed, and by the 9th of the same month, 
or on the twenty-fifth day after sowing, the last of 
the eight seeds pushed its radicle. One of the 
seedlings was afterwards lost by an accident, but 
the remaining seven formed healthy little plants, 
and when embarked at Guayaquil, along with the 
rooted cuttings and layers, bid as fair as any of the 
latter to reach India alive. He had previously 
sown, at Guayaquil, eight Cinchona seeds gathered 
by me in 1859, and which had remained nine 
months in my herbarium ; even of these, four 
germinated, and the remaining four might possibly 
have grown also, had they not been carried off by 
mice. It is therefore clearly proved that well- 
ripened and properly dried seeds do not lose their 
vitality for a much longer period than their exces- 
sive delicacy would lead one to suspect. 
Having learnt that there were a few seed-bear- 
ing trees at Tabacal, a farm in the San Antonio 
valley, near the deserted village of San Antonio, I 
determined to go there while Mr. Cross and Dr. 
Taylor were attending to the work at Limon. The 
distance is not perhaps more than 15 miles in a 
