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Vitality of Seeds.

It has long been a disputed question among botanists, whether the uniformity existing in the vegetation of different islands and continents having no other communication with each other but a wide expanse of ocean is owing to a special creation in each instance, or to an interchange of seeds transported from one shore to another by the waters of the sea.

M. Cb. Martens, professor at Montpellier, in a letter to M. Flourens, recently communicated to the Academy of Sciences, gives an account certain experiments ha has instituted for the purpose of ascertaining—

1, whether many kinds of seeds are specifically lighter than sea-water, as to swim on the surface; and, after having undergone the action of sea-water for a certain length of time, they are still in a condition to germinate. With regard to the first question, M. Martens has found that out of a certain number of different kinds of fresh seeds, chiefly of a large size taken at random, two-thirds will swim on the waters of the Mediterranean, the density of which is 1.0258. To ascertain the second question, M. Martens caused a large box of sheet iron to be made, divided into 100 compartments. Ninety-eight of these compartments received a certain number of seeds of different kinds, and the apparatus thus prepared was fastened to a buoy. A large number of minute holes pierced in the sides of the box allowed the water free ingress and egress, without any danger of the seeds being washed away. After a lapse of six weeks the box was taken out of the sea and opened, when out of the 98 kinds of seeds 41 were found completely rotten. The remaining 57 kinds were immediately sown in pots filled with earth taken from a heath. Of these, 35 kinds only germinated, including 17 of those which are specifically heavier than sea water, and could not therefore be transported to any distance; so that, out of 98 species, 18 only might germinate after a six weeks' voyage, under the most favourable circumstances.

Repeating the experiment with the 35 kinds which bad resisted the action of sea water for this space of time, M. Martens left them for three months exposed to its action, and then found 11 in a rotten state; of the other 23 only nine germinated, two of which were specifically heavier than sea water; so that, after a three months' sojourn in the sea, a period most likely to be the usual one, seven kinds only out of 98 might have some chance of germinating. The ricinus communis and cucurbita pepo are among the number. Now, if all the dangers be taken into consideration to which a seed must be exposed during a long voyage, as well as the difficulties it must meet with to find a congenial soil on landing, with other circumstances calculated to promote its germination and subsequent preservation from destruction, M. Martens concludes, with M. Alph. De Candolle, that the transportation of seeds by sea must have had a very small share in the propagation of plants to other shores, and that the hypothesis of simultaneous creations in different parts of the globe acquires much probability. M. Martens, however, omits from his calculation the geological consideration that many parts of surface of the globe now separated by sea were at one time united.

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