Time Capsules: Seeds sprout 120 years after going underground

An experiment designed by a botany professor to last longer than his own life has demonstrated that seeds of two common flowers still sprout and blossom despite more than a century in a bottle.

FIELD WORK. Professor William James Beal started his long-term experiment in 1879. Michigan State Univ.

This work ranks as the longest-running test of seed dormancy in soil, says the current generation of researchers, Frank Telewski and Jan Zeevaart of Michigan State University in East Lansing.