i am wondering if anyone has ever encountered the acorns on a live oak germinating on the tree. the radicle had extended 1-2 inches. this ocurred in nov. and i have pictures if needed. i have lived in sc for 5 yrs and had never seen it before.
is this a unique occurrance for this tree? for this area? none of the other live oaks in the area (10 acres) exhibited this tendency.
i picked some of the acorns and planted them in containers for future study.
is there any documentation or journal addressing this situation?

This is very interesting. I have no experience with this phenomenon, but I came upon a reference to ethylene gas exposure acting as an antagonist to a mechanism that controls elongation of the cotyledon during seed maturation, causing precocious germination.
There was another reference to hormones that promote germination:
hormones

I wonder if microclimate conditions combined with plant variability to produce the stimulus for this phenomenon? Or perhaps the tree was exposed to a source of ethylene or gibberellin?

mark,
i checked out the link you provided, thanks. the trees were not exposed to any gasses either airborne or soil-borne. i've also considered microclimate tendencies in the area, but there are other like sized live oaks within 50 yards (all in "forest" conditions) that did not show any signs of this anomaly. i was on site this week and haven't seen anything that would differentiate the tree in question from all of the others around. perplexing. i'm going to email dr. gilman in fla. and see his input.

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