Water uptake of seeds is a fundamental internal biochemical activation process. The research was conducted at the Laboratory of Botany and Seeds at the Colegio de Postgraduados, with the objetive of studying the imbibition progress of two species of nanche, subjected to different treatments, in order to asses the water uptake previous to germination process.In the first experiment 80 seeds were placed in petri dishes on moist cotton; in the second, four replications of 100 seeds, each wrapped

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... a bag and placed in a container with 3 L of water were taken. Four replications of 25 seeds of each species were used and the head of the embryo was removed, then they were put in petri dishes on wet cotton. The weight was recorded and the rate of imbibition was calculated by subtracting the final weight to the initial, perfoming ANOVA and averages with Tukey (α=0.05). The results showed that Byrsonima crassifolia imbibe low rates and present physical latency, and Malpighia mexicana absorbs twice its weight and loses solutes. The embryo Byrsonima crassifolia absorbs more water while in Malpighia mexicana there is greater imbibition of the seed coat. There were differences between species.