362 
Keport of the Botanist of the 
Germination of Weed Seeds. 
COMMON NAME. 
LATIN NAME. 
Wild Aster 
Beggar Ticks 
Heal-all 
Shepherd's Purse. 
Pigweed 
Wild Carrot 
English Plantain. . 
Common Plantain. 
Dandelion 
Aster Novse-Angliae L 
Bidens frondosa L 
Brunella vulgaris L 
Capsella Bursa-pastoris M. 
Chenopodium album L 
Daucus Carota L 
Plantago lanceolataL 
Plantago Bugelii Dec. . . 
Taraxacum officinale W. 
Percentage of Germina- 
tions or Seeds Gathered 
at Different Dates. 
Sept. 
1886. 
3 
1 


73 
27 
2 
Apr. 2, 
June 8, 
1887. 
92 
The accompanying table gives the results of later studies. Seeds 
were gathered in September, 1886, and kept as garden seeds are till 
April of the following spring, then tested between folds of moist cloth 
in the germinating pans commonly used at the Station. Of one 
hundred seeds each of the wild aster, beggar's ticks, heal-all, shep- 
herd's purse, common plantain, English plantain and wild carrot, only 
the last two gave more than three per cent of growth, those being 
twenty-seven and seventy -three per cent respectively. English plantain, 
also known as rib-grass, and called " buckhorn " by our workmen, is 
sometimes grown as a forage plant, and the wild carrot is the same 
species as the cultivated form and but little removed from it. Both 
might with some propriety be looked upon as escapes from cultivation; 
at least they have one property which adapts them to the routine of 
cultivated plants — the seeds can withstand dryness between the usual 
period of harvest and seed-time, apparently in proportion as their 
ancestry may be supposed to have been removed from wildness. 
Seeds of pigweed and wild carrot were also gathered April second, 
from stalks that had remained over winter where they grew, and one 
hundred seeds of each, apparently sound and well developed, were 
tested in the germinating pans, being put in as soon as gathered. 
None of the carrot grew and only eight of the pigweed. 
On June eighth, seeds of dandelion and shepherd's purse were 
gathered and at once put into the testing pans; not a seed of the 
latter germinated, but ninety-two per cent of the dandelion did, and a 
duplicate trial of dandelion seed in moist sand gave nearly the same 
percentage. So far as dandelion seeds are concerned it is evident 
that practically all the seeds which a plant produces are capable of 
growth. 
