180 Sargant . — The Reconstruction of a Race of 
The linear leaves of Monocotyledons are particularly well adapted to 
sudden elongation in order to pierce the soil in the spring, when the 
ground is moist with the melting snow, or the first rains. The rapid 
production of flowers and leaves is a point of great importance to a geo- 
phyte. Every hour of the short season is precious — to the leaves for 
assimilation, to the flowers for ripening seed. 
Another feature characteristic of a geophyte is the long interval which 
commonly elapses between the sowing of its seeds and their germination. 
This is a peculiarity only too familiar to gardeners who raise bulbous and 
alpine plants from seed. It is correlated with the very immature condition 
of the embryo in the ripe seed. Among many examples, I may quote the 
particulars as to the germination of Ranunculus Ficaria given by M. Sterckx 
(83). The embryo in the ripe seed of this plant is a small, spherical, un- 
differentiated mass of meristem attached to a short suspensor. Seeds sown 
immediately on ripening — that is, in May, 1896 — did not germinate until the 
early spring of 1898 (pp. 42-3). 1 At the time of germination, cotyledon, 
plumule, and primary root were all indicated in the embryo, which had 
increased enormously in size. 
This deliberate maturation of the embryo is correlated with the geo- 
philous habit. For the plant has a struggle to get the seed ripened at all 
within its short growing season. To place the germ of the future plant in 
safety is the one essential : to provide it with food, and to protect it from 
the bad weather. This accomplished, the whole of the next growing 
season may well be devoted to the maturation of the embryo, while its 
germination is postponed to the third season. Hence the seeds of well- 
marked geophytes are commonly albuminous, and their embryos not only 
small but quite undifferentiated. 
When germination at last takes place, the geophilous seedling makes 
but little show above ground. Sometimes, indeed, it remains below the sur- 
face during the first season after germination (Arum maculatum , Veratrum 
nigrum). But this is exceptional : as a rule at least one green part appears 
in the first year. It may be the cotyledon, as in Fritillaria. , or the first leaf, 
as in Crocus. The fact that all Dicotyledons with one seed-leaf are geo- 
philous has been mentioned already. So are those in which the cotyledons 
are partially united, as in Podophyllum, with the solitary exception of Rhizo - 
phora (72, pp. 73 and 77-8). It would seem, then, that the geophilous seedling 
observes a strict economy in its aerial organs duringthe first season of growth. 
The explanation of this economy — already given elsewhere (72, pp. 80-1, 
and 73, p. 353) — may be shortly repeated here. The seedling has to face 
the return of bad weather at the end of a short growing period. If it is not 
1 Two seeds among a large number are stated by M. Sterckx (83) to have germinated in 1897. 
Dr. Schmid in South Germany (78), and Mr. McDonald in Lancashire (59), found that seeds sown 
early out of doors commonly germinate in the following year. No doubt this discrepancy depends 
on a difference of climate. 
