CHAPTER IX

THE GERMINATION OF FLOATING SEEDS

Germination in the floating seed-drift of tropical estuaries.—A strain of vivipary.—Abortive germination of seeds in warm seas.—A barrier to plant dispersal.—The borderland of vivipary.— Summary.

THE tendency of the floating seed or fruit to germinate in the estuaries of tropical rivers is especially characteristic of the plants of the mangrove-swamps and of their borders. In the Fijian rivers, and particularly in the estuary of the Rewa, where the river-water is usually mixed with that of the sea, there are frequently to be found in a state of germination floating fruits of Barringtonia racemosa, Carapa obovata, Clerodendron inerme, Derris uliginosa, Smythea pacifica, &c.; whilst the floating fruits of more characteristic beach-trees like Barringtonia speciosa and Cerbera Odollam, that grow also on the sides of the estuaries, were never noticed in this condition. That this tendency should be restricted to the plants of the mangrove-formation and is not to be observed in the beach-trees is a singular fact. There is, however, an intermediate group of littoral plants mostly belonging to genera of the Leguminosæ and Convolvulaceæ, such as Mucuna and Ipomœa, where germination of the floating seed is apt to begin but ends abortively, and results in the sinking and death of the seed. The subject of the germination of seeds in the floating drift of tropical estuaries presents itself, therefore, in three aspects:—

(1) As concerning the plants of the mangrove-formation, where, excluding the viviparous species (when germination takes place on the plant), germination is frequent in the water:

(2) As concerning the beach-trees where it is rare or absent altogether:

(3) As concerning certain Leguminous and Convolvulaceous littoral plants where germination is not infrequent but always abortive.

Dealing first with the plants of the mangrove-formation, it may be remarked that the same tendency of the floating fruits or seeds to germinate, which is above noticed in the case of the estuaries of Fiji, came under my observation in the floating drift of the estuary of the Guayaquil River in Ecuador, the germinating fruits and seeds being carried far out to sea. The seeds of Anona paludosa, which float in quantities in the river-drift, were often found germinating; and the same may be said of the fruits of Laguncularia racemosa and of the “joints” of Salicornia peruviana which abound in the creeks of the mangrove-delta and are carried out to sea in the germinating condition.

It might be expected that this readiness to germinate in the brackish water of estuaries would prove to be a formidable obstacle to the dispersal of these plants over wide tracts of ocean. The exposed portions of the seedling might be deemed ill-suited to withstand, without injury, the “wear-and-tear” of transport by currents over long distances, even when not affected by the sea-water; and it might be thought that they would be often nibbled off by fish or destroyed by other aquatic animals. Only the specially organised seedlings produced by a viviparous process on the tree, such as those of Rhizophora and Bruguiera, might be regarded as able to survive the effects of prolonged immersion in the oceanic currents.

Observation, indeed, shows that such seedlings are exposed to and suffer from these perils; yet it is evident from the distribution of the species that, whether in the germinating condition or not, the seeds and fruits of Anona paludosa and Laguncularia racemosa have been carried by the currents from America to the West Coast of Africa. The seedlings of Avicennia and of Rhizophora mangle have also performed the same trans-Atlantic voyage. Those of both these mangroves are to be observed floating off the coasts and in the estuaries of both coasts of America. The seedlings of Avicennia are particularly abundant in the mangrove-creeks of the delta of the Guayaquil River; and I observed them in a healthy condition, ten to twenty miles out at sea, floating together with those of the Rhizophora. Since, as in the case of Rhizophora, germination occurs normally on the plant, Avicennia can only be dispersed by its floating seedlings. Yet it is noteworthy that although Avicennia seedlings appear, to a marked degree, less fitted for ocean transport than those of Rhizophora and Bruguiera, the species have a much wider distribution. Avicennia officinalis has a cosmopolitan distribution in the tropics and beyond, occurring as it does on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America, on both coasts of Africa, over Asia and Australia, as well as in New Caledonia and New Zealand, but not in Polynesia (_Bot. Chall. Exped._, III., 178).... I have now gone far enough to show that the tendency displayed by the seeds and fruits of several of the plants of the mangrove-formation to germinate either on the tree or in the floating drift of estuaries has not affected the general distribution of the species in its main outlines. Few fruits are found more often in a germinating condition in the floating drift of the Rewa River in Fiji than those of Barringtonia racemosa, yet the species ranges from the African East Coast eastward to Polynesia. Seedlings as well as seeds or fruits, whether or not in a germinating condition, are, therefore, able in such cases to disperse the species.

This readiness of the floating fruits of plants of the mangrove formation (excluding the viviparous species) to germinate in the estuaries is, I am inclined to think, due in the main to the strain of vivipary that runs through nearly all the plants of the mangrove-swamp and of its borders. It would, indeed, appear that the viviparous habit (the capacity of germinating on the plant) which finds its extreme development in Rhizophora and Bruguiera of the Fijian swamps is represented in its earliest stage in the readiness of the floating fruits of Barringtonia racemosa, Carapa obovata, &c., to germinate in the Fijian estuaries, and as remarked in Note 37 there is a suspicion of vivipary in the instances of both the species just named. Intermediate cases, as that of Laguncularia in the Ecuador swamps, occur in other regions with species where germination only takes place at times on the plant. This subject is, however, generally discussed in Chapter XXX. and need not be further dealt with here.

A predisposing cause of the germination of floating seeds and fruits in tropical estuaries would seem to be afforded by the super-heating of the water of the estuary. This came under my notice both in the Rewa River in Fiji and in the Guayaquil River in Ecuador, where the water of the estuary is often noticed to be some degrees warmer than that of the sea outside, and of the water from the river above the estuary. (See Note 38.)

We come now to the subject of the non-germination in tropical estuaries of the floating fruits of the beach-trees, such as Barringtonia speciosa and Cerbera Odollam, that in the Pacific islands may contribute to river-drift. Such trees may grow on the banks of the estuary, and their fruits would thus readily fall into the water; but in the Rewa estuary in Fiji it was evident that the fruits and seeds of beach-plants, such as Scævola Koenigii, are also brought in by the tide. The seeds of Morinda citrifolia were often noticed in the Rewa drift together with the fruits of Heritiera littoralis, which is both a beach and a swamp plant, but never in a germinating condition. The same remark applies also to the fruits of beach trees found afloat in the sea between the islands, such as Cordia subcordata, Guettarda speciosa, and Terminalia. It is possible that a few of these plants, as in the case of Barringtonia speciosa, display traces in the structure of their fruits of a lost viviparous habit. (See Note 50.) It is pointed out in discussing Guettarda that germination is much more easily induced than one would expect in the case of fruits with such a hard ligneous putamen.

An interesting subject is presented in the abortive germination of the floating seeds of many plants of the Leguminosæ and Convolvulaceæ both at sea and in a tropical estuary. My conclusions on this matter are based partly on observations made in Fiji, but mainly on the results of numbers of experiments, this being unavoidable, since the abortive germination causes the sinking of the seed. The principal determining cause of the germination in water of one of these floating seeds is evidently to be sought in the temperature of the water, it being immaterial for the earliest stage of germination, as many of my experiments indicate, whether the seed or fruit is afloat in the sea or in the river. In these flotation experiments, when conducted under warm conditions with sea-water, the earliest signs of germination were frequently displayed in the softening, swelling, and sinking of the seed. If the swelling seed is taken out in time and planted after a preliminary soaking in fresh water, the germinating process is at once resumed and is often successfully and rapidly completed; but if the seed is allowed to remain in the vessel after it has absorbed sea-water the vitality of the embryo is destroyed and the seed decays.

That many seeds would fail from this cause to cross an ocean my experiments repeatedly demonstrated. Nor does the appearance of a seed afford any indication of its probable failure to cross an ocean. Some seeds of Mucuna, as far as their hard coverings could guide one, would seem to be quite secure from such a risk. The stony seeds, for instance, of M. urens D.C. look as if they might safely be transported by the currents round and round the globe; and De Candolle very rightly placed this species in his scanty list of plants dispersed by currents. Yet few seeds are more treacherous when their buoyancy in sea-water is tested in a warm place, as in a hot-house. They may take up water, swell, and sink in a week, or they may float unharmed for a year.

The seeds most exposed to this risk are those of the Leguminous giant climbers, the lianes of the coast and inland forests of the islands of the tropical Pacific. They belong to the genera Mucuna, Strongylodon, &c.; and thus several of the plants that constitute for the student of plant-dispersal the enigmas of the Pacific are here included. The seeds of Mucuna are especially liable when afloat in sea-water under warm conditions to display the early signs of germination, swelling up and sinking to the bottom of the vessel, a process, however, soon arrested and followed by the death of the embryo unless the seed is removed in time. Yet the seeds of this genus are notably long “floaters.” Those of an American species, variously designated as Mucuna pruriens D.C. and M. urens D.C., have long been known to be washed ashore together with the seeds of Entada scandens on the western shores of Europe, and particularly on the Scandinavian coast, where they form regular constituents of what the Scandinavian botanists correctly term the Gulf-stream Drift.

Mucuna urens D.C. occurs with other American shore-plants that are dispersed by the currents on the African West Coast; and there is no reason to doubt that its seeds perform the trans-Atlantic voyage. It is found in Polynesia, in Hawaii, in the Marquesas, and according to Reinecke also in Samoa; and probably it occurs in other groups. The specific determinations of the genus, however, need thorough overhauling, so that it is not possible to deal more than in general terms with the distribution of a species. The distribution of Mucuna urens in the Pacific is, however, irregular, and no doubt this is to be connected with the uncertain behaviour of its seeds when transported by tropical currents. The seeds would, I venture to think, often sink through abortive germination in the warm areas of equatorial seas.

When in Hawaii I kept ten of the seeds of this species (M. urens D.C.) in sea-water for four and a half months, none of them sinking in that period, the temperature of the water rarely reaching over 80°F., the average daily temperature being 76-77°. However, when four years afterwards in England I placed five of the seeds obtained at the same time in sea-water under conditions where the water-temperature ranged for the first few weeks between 75° and 90°, three of them began to swell within ten days, and on removal at once germinated healthily. The remaining two were afloat at the end of twelve months, and when planted one of them germinated a month afterwards.

Having experimented on the seeds of about half a dozen different species of Mucuna in sea-water, all with buoyant qualities, it is possible for me to lay down the general rule for the buoyant seeds of the genus that sinking is the result of an attempt at germination, which, as before observed, proves abortive unless the seed is removed in time. It is obvious that the gardener wishing to raise plants of this genus without delay might profitably adopt the method of keeping them afloat in water at a temperature of 80-90° F. until they begin to swell, which may happen in some cases in a few days. Sea-water seems to produce the most rapid results.

When on Keeling Atoll in the Indian Ocean I collected, amongst the stranded seed-drift brought by the currents to those islands, the seeds of five or six species of Mucuna, two of which were identified at Kew as M. macrocarpa, Wall., and M. gigantea D.C. (see my paper on the dispersal of plants at Keeling Atoll). No plant of this genus appears up to that time to have been recorded from the Keeling Islands, so that at all events most if not all of the seeds had been brought by the currents from the Indian Archipelago, some 700 miles away. It may be added that amongst the drift gathered by me on the south coast of Java the seeds of three species of Mucuna were identified at Kew, including the two above-named species from Keeling Atoll.

These current-borne seeds of the Keeling beaches had probably performed an ocean journey of a thousand miles, since the route could scarcely have been direct. Yet their behaviour when placed eighteen months after in sea-water in a hothouse in England was most erratic. Of three seeds of Mucuna gigantea all swelled and sank within eight days. Two seeds of M. macrocarpa sank after floating from sixty to a hundred days; whilst of two seeds of another species both remained afloat after a year. In a sea-water experiment in England on five Hawaiian seeds of M. gigantea, under the conditions referred to in the Mucuna urens experiment, one sank within ten days, whilst three of them were afloat after twelve months, one of them subsequently germinating. This species, it may be remarked, is widely distributed as a coast plant over tropical Asia, Australia, and in Polynesia. It seems to take the place in the Old World which Mucuna urens takes in America, and it is curious that they meet in Polynesia, being sometimes associated as in Hawaii. In the chapter on my observations in Ecuador and in Panama it is remarked that Mucuna seeds are frequent constituents of river, sea, and stranded drift. I, therefore, have enjoyed the opportunity of observing the behaviour of the seeds of this genus in a variety of localities, namely, in the Keeling Islands, in West Java, in Fiji, Hawaii, and tropical America; and this may be pleaded as an excuse for entering into so much detail respecting them.

The large seeds of Strongylodon lucidum (S. ruber), a Leguminous liane that ranks with the species of Mucuna amongst the huge climbers of the forest of the Pacific islands, behaved in a similar way in my flotation experiments in sea-water. Though, as shown in Note 3, these seeds can float for a year and retain their germinating power, some of them brought their buoyant capacity prematurely to an end by an abortive attempt at germination. These black rounded seeds form a common object amongst the river seed-drift stranded on some of the Fijian beaches in the vicinity of estuaries. They are so hard and durable that they are mounted in brooches in Honolulu. Yet these pebble-like seeds will sometimes begin to swell in a few days in sea-water. Out of five seeds placed in sea-water in England under warm conditions (the water temperature for the first few weeks ranging between 75° and 90° F.), one swelled and sank within ten days, another did so after two months, whilst the other three were afloat after twelve months, and one of them subsequently germinated. There is some disagreement amongst botanists as to the limits of the specific characters of the plants of this genus (see Note 39); but the plan seemingly most in accord with the fundamental principles regulating plant-distribution in this region of the Pacific is to regard the forms found in Hawaii, Tahiti, and Fiji, as referable to one species. In addition to the Polynesian forms there are only two or three species, found in the Philippines, Madagascar, and Ceylon, and it is with the species from the last-named locality that the Polynesian species is by some identified.

The seeds of several other Leguminous climbers would probably act in a similar way, for instance, those of Entada scandens; but the seeds of this plant experimented on by me were too few to enable an opinion to be formed. Of four seeds of Dioclea violacea from Fiji that were subjected to the same experiment as those of Strongylodon lucidum, all floated in sea-water after a year, with the exception of one that did not swell and sink until after ten months. On the other hand, in my experiment in Fiji on the fresh seeds of Canavalia obtusifolia, a plant found on tropical beaches all round the globe, seventy per cent. sank in the first six or seven weeks, swelling and displaying the first signs of germination, but quite ten per cent. were afloat after three months.

My experiments on the foregoing and other littoral species of the Leguminosæ merely indicate that under the ordinary temperature of tropical currents a portion of the seeds will probably sink owing to abortive attempts at germination. It is likely that if in the experiments in England a constant temperature of 85° to 90° F. had been sustained throughout, most if not all of the seeds would have swelled and sunk within a month or two. The temperature of the experiments in Fiji and Hawaii did not exceed that of many tropical currents; but there are areas of superheating in equatorial seas, which I think would prove insurmountable barriers in the path of most drifting Leguminous seeds, a subject to which further reference will be made.

Coming to the Convolvulaceæ, my experiments show that the buoyant seeds often lose their floating powers from the same cause. Those of Ipomœa pes capræ may be taken as an example. I was surprised to find when experimenting on the buoyancy in sea-water of these seeds in Fiji and Hawaii that a considerable proportion, about a third, sank in the first two months, swelling and sinking to the bottom. That this swelling represented the early stage of germination was well brought out in parallel experiments in fresh water and sea-water made in England on the buoyant seeds of the British littoral species, Convolvulus soldanella. A good proportion of the seeds in the first part of the experiment absorbed water, swelled, and sank, those in fresh water proceeding at once to germinate healthily at the bottom, whilst those that sank in sea-water merely decayed. Of the survivors about fifty per cent. in either case floated after six months. It may be added that the seeds of other tropical littoral species, such as those of Ipomœa glaberrima and I. grandiflora, behaved in the same way.

It would appear from my experiments, and it is a result that we should expect, that buoyant seeds of the Leguminosæ and Convolvulaceæ would often float for much longer periods under cool than under warm conditions. There must be areas of high temperature in mid-ocean that would prove much more fatal to the chances of a drifting tropical seed than the icy waters of a Polar current. In my paper on Keeling Atoll I have described how I procured the germination of a seed of Ipomœa grandiflora, Lam., after a year’s flotation in sea-water in London, which included a period of three weeks when the water temperature was at or about 32° F. These seeds from this point of view would be exposed to much more risk of sinking through abortive attempts at germination when drifting across some parts of the Pacific Ocean. It would appear from the Admiralty Chart of Surface-Temperatures, published in 1884, that such an area with a surface-temperature of 83° to 86° throughout the year extends north and east of New Guinea well into the Pacific, reaching in the first half of the year as far east as the Tahitian region. It would seem highly probable that the immersion of Leguminous or Convolvulaceous seeds for many months in these tepid waters would in most if not in all cases induce incipient germination which would lead to the sinking of the seed. There are, however, exceptional cases, as that of Cæsalpinia bonducella, which, as my experiments recorded in