Extraordinary Vitality of Certain Seeds.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4, 28 January 1905, Page 8

Extraordinary Vitality of Certain Seeds.

The length of time seeds will preserve their vitality differs amazingly in different plans. The seeds of the willow', for instance, will not germinate after having once been dry, and their

germinating power is lost in two weeks even if during that interval they have been kept fresh. The seeds of eoffee do not germinate after having been kept for any considerable length of time. The grains of wheat lose their power and strength after a lapse of seven years, though wheat over two centuries old has been quite capable of being used for food. The story of “mummy wheat” sprouting after having lain dormant in Egyptian tombs for thousands of years, to say the least, sounds exceedingly dubious. No well authenticated instances of sueh finds are extant, while among other articles sold by the Arabs to credulous travellers as coming out of the same tomb as the ancient wheat have been dahlia bulbs and maize, the deposition of which, in the receptacle from which they were said to have been taken, makes it necessary to believe that three thousind tears ago the subjects of Ph r ah were engaged in commerce with America. Rye and whea-t only 185 years old could not be induced to germinate, the place of the embryo being filled with a slimy and putrefying liquid. When kept secluded from light and dampness seeds have been known to keep for lengthened periods.

The most unscientific observer has noticed how often plants appear in old ground which has been trenched which have never appeared in such spots previously, and that after fires pass over localities plants equally strange to the neighbourhood appear. It is noticed that when an American forest is fired the trees that take the place of the binned ones are of a different species from those hitherto observed in that neighbourhood. After the great Lon-

don fire in 1666 the yellow rocket appeared in great profusion for the first time in the district swept by the fire. These facts, which cannot be denied, have led to the theory that seeds may lie for long periods dormant and only spring into life when some stimulus, such as exposure to the sun. rain, or heat, is applied to them. A scientist nas recently discovered tliat an extensive tract of land, at the silver mines of Laurium, in Greece, is covered by a luxuriant growth of horned poppies belonging to a hitherto unknown species. These plants have shot up through soil which lias been covered to the depth of ten feet with the masses of cinder and slag thrown out by the workmen in ancient times when the mines were worked by the Greeks, and which have been recently disturbed in order that the imperfectly fused materials might be subjected to further precess of fusion for the purpose of extracting their silver contents.