152 Thiselton-Dyer . — Morphological Notes . 
in any part of the internal cavity not occupied by fluid, in 
a greater proportion than in atmospheric air. But the illu- 
mination of the seedlings would be too feeble to allow of its 
being fixed and decomposed. 
On the whole the nutrition of the seedlings closely ap- 
proached 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. 
Precocious germination in the melon had not previously 
been unknown, though it is apparently uncommon. Mr. Harry 
J. Veitch, a well-known authority, wrote that he had ‘ met 
with such occasionally before, but not often, but cannot offer 
any explanation for the occurrence.’ The question then arose 
as to whether it was to be regarded as a case of physiological 
variation. This point seems disposed of by the following 
note from Mr. A. Mackellar, who grew the melons at Sand- 
ringham, for which I am indebted to Sir Dighton Probyn : — 
‘ I have to-day cut open two melons in which the seeds 
have germinated and developed into nice-sized seedlings with 
broad green leaves. Each melon was grown on different 
plants, but the same variety, and was cut for a fortnight and 
kept on a shelf in the fruit room ; previous to being cut 
they were kept on the plants for quite a fortnight after being 
quite ripe. 
‘No doubt the cause of the seeds germinating and growing 
in the melons is the unusual 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 melon in which 
the seeds germinated is called “ Osberton.” Along with it 
I grew “ Hero of Lockinge,” but no seeds in this variety 
germinated, neither did the melons keep quite so long. My 
reason for keeping the melons so long is that I had two 
houses in which the melons were ripe almost at the same 
time, forty in each house. There were no germinated seeds 
in any of the melons that were cut when first ripe.’ 
