Notes on Recent Literature. 31 
40. 
A. G. Tansley. 
“ Lectures on the Evolution of the Filicinean Vascular 
System, II. The Botryopterideas.” New Phyto¬ 
logist, 1907. 
41. 
Ditto, “III. The Modern Ferns and Anatomical Evo 
lution—The Hymenophyllaceas.” New Phyto¬ 
logist, 1907. 
42. 
J » 
Ditto. “VII. Polycycly, continued." New Phytologist, 
1907. 
43. 
» > 
Ditto. “ VIII. The Osmundacea; and Ophioglossales.” 
New Phytologist, 1907. 
44. 
A. G. Tansley and R. B. J. Lulham. “ A New Type of Fern-stele, and 
its probable phylogenetic relations.” Annals of 
Botany, 1902. 
45. 
W. C. Worsdell. “The Principles of Morphology, 11.” “The Evolution 
of the Sporangium.” New Phytologist, 1905. 
NOTES ON RECENT LITERATURE. 
PHYSIOLOGY. 
The Longevity and Vitality of Seeds. 
O NLY recently has there been made available any large body of 
trustworthy data upon the duration of viability in seeds. In 
1907 P. Becquerel 1 published a valuable research upon the conditions 
which affect the vitality of seeds, and this includes tests of the 
viability of seeds of known and considerable age of some 500 
species. In 1908 Ewart 2 published a similar list of tests made by 
him upon more than a thousand seeds in Australia, together with a 
collation of other such data collected from botanical literature. 
We may consider first the data now available upon the longevity 
of seeds and then Becquerel’s work upon the nature of the dormant 
vitality in seeds. 
Becquerel tested the germination of all the oldest seeds of 
known age (25 to 135 years), preserved in the Natural History 
Museum of Paris. These represented 500 species belonging to 30 
families, of which only 50 species produced seedlings, and these 
species were all included in four families; the majority in 
Leguminosae, a few in Nelumbiaceae, Malvaceae and Labiatae. The 
veteran seeds that germinated were as follows:— 
1 Becquerel. Recherches sur la vie latente des graines ; Ann. des 
Sci. Nat., Bot., Ser. IX., T. V., 1907, pp. 193-310. 
2 Ewart. On the Longevity of Seeds; Proc. Roy. Soc. of 
Victoria, Vol. XXI., 1908, pp. 1-211. 
