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298
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
were not lost. The capsules were afterwards
spread out to dry on the same sheets, and the
drying occupied from two to ten days. The first
seeds were gathered at Limon on the i4th, and the
last on the 2Qth of August. Early in September
they were all dry.
Mr. Cross sowed, on the i6th of August, eight
one of them began to
of the seeds I had gathered ;
and at the end of a
germinate on the fourth day,
fortnight four seeds had pushed their radicles. On
the 6th of September one had the seed-leaves completely
developed, and by the Qth of the same month,
or on the twenty-fifth day after sowing, the last of
the eight seeds pushed its radicle. One of the
seedlings was afterwards lost by an accident, but
the remaining seven formed healthy little plants,
and when embarked at Guayaquil, along with the
rooted cuttings and layers, bid as fair as any of the
latter to reach India alive. He had previously
sown, at Guayaquil, eight Cinchona seeds gathered
by me in 1859,
months in my herbarium ;
and which had remained nine
even of these, four
germinated, and the remaining four might possibly
have grown also, had they not been carried off by
mice. It is therefore clearly proved that well-
ripened and properly dried seeds do not lose their
vitality for a much longer period than their excessive
delicacy would lead one to suspect.
Having learnt that there were a few seed-bearing
trees at Tabacal, a farm in the San Antonio
of San Antonio, I
valley, near the deserted village
determined to go there while Mr. Cross and Dr.
Taylor were attending to the work at Limon. The
distance is not perhaps more than 15 miles in a