It deserves notice that certain orders were far more injured than others: nine Leguminosae were tried, and, with one exception, they resisted the salt-water badly; seven species of the allied orders, Hydrophyllaceae and Polemoniaceae, were all killed by a month's immersion.

For convenience sake I chiefly tried small seeds without the capsules or fruit; and as all of these sank in a few days, they could not have been floated across wide spaces of the sea, whether or not they were injured by salt water.

Afterwards I tried some larger fruits, capsules, etc., and some of these floated for a long time.

It is well known what a difference there is in the buoyancy of green and seasoned timber; and it occurred to me that floods would often wash into the sea dried plants or branches with seed-capsules or fruit attached to them.

Hence I was led to dry the stems and branches of ninety-four plants with ripe fruit, and to place them on sea-water.