Several treatments for overcoming seed dormancy were tested in Desmodium incanum and Lathyrus nervosus, aiming at identifying a method to speed germination. Besides the germination test, seeds were treated as follows: chemical scarification with conccentrated sulphuric acid for 5min.; immersion in hot water (70º C, 5min.); manual mechanical scarification with sandpaper number 20 for 1min. (D. incanum) and mechnical scarification with an electric scarifier with number 180 sandpaper for 3sec. (L. nervosus). Exposure to dry air (60ºC, 72 hours) was also tested for the latter species. L. nervosus seeds were placed in gerbox over blotting paper and kept at 20ºC. Sterilized sand was used as substrate for D. incanum, at constant temperature of 30ºC. A completely randomized design with four repetitions (50 seeds each) was employed. Data were transformed into arch-sene x /100 and means compared by the Tukey test (P < 0.01). In both species the control presented a high percentage of hard seeds, confirming the need of some method to overcome dormancy. Chemical scarification with sulphuric acid gave the higher germination percentage and lower percentage of remaining hard seeds for both species, from all tested methods. Althoug mechanical scarification and immersion in hot water were not the more effective method in releasing seed dormancy, they were superior to the standard (no scarification).