Alan Meyer wrote:
I don't know the answer for this species, but delayed germination can
have a survival benefit for some species.

Delays can get the seeds past difficult seasons or conditions and
start the seedling growing at a more propitious time.

Delays can also give seeds more chance to disperse, allowing the
species to colonize a larger territory.

Perhaps the drying out functions as a delay timer, or perhaps it
signals to the seed that it is in sunlight, away from the shade of
the parent tree or other plants.

All just speculation on my part.

Good luck with your seedlings.

Alan

A.P. replies:

Reasonable answers. Another answer is that dry seeds can travel farther
in the wind than green seeds.

I wonder about the cuttings and the shrivelled leaves. I wonder if each
leaf is directly connected to some root, or part of a root. And if that
root is severed or removed, the leaf corresponding to that root
shrivels and dies. So that if an insect eats all of one specific root
whether specific leaves die as a consequence. So that as these cuttings
have no roots, all the leaves will die. Hopefully new roots are formed.

I have to be as accurate as possible. It was last Friday I collected
the seed and it was Saturday that I planted them. So today marks one
full week. And I have 2 germinations of seed, ulmus americana, not rock
elm. I have some american and siberian elm as reference. It is the Rock
Elm that I want. I have about 150 Rock Elm seeds planted. And I have 24
Rock Elm cuttings with leaves severly shriveled. I think they are
getting too much sun from the window acting as a lens. So I think I
shall move them to a shady spot. I still keep the night lamp on them
for most of the nighttime. I expect few if any survivors for the
cuttings but worth the try.

So it takes just 7 days for American Elm to start to germinate. Perhaps
I should have waited to dry the Rock Elm seed before planting them.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies