9G DR. B. SPEUCE ON EQUATOMAL-AMEMCAls PALMS. 



mediate steps towards that complete dioicity which many species of 

 palms have already attained. 



It is easy to conceive how this change of function may operate 

 as a kind of repose to the plant, whose energies will be less severely 

 taxed when every alternate year (or season) it is relieved from 

 the burden of maturing the fruit. 



In species that have (apparently) become permanently dioicous, 

 it is curious to note how the female flowers still stand singly, the 

 male flowers in pairs, on their respective spadices and stems, the 

 missing flowers of the opposite sex being sometimes indicated by 

 scars or by empty bracteoles. In Lepidocaryum the flowers are 

 distichous on the ramuli of the spadices, solitary in their recep- 

 tacles on the female plant, twin on the male. 



Prom all this it is obvious that the specific characters that have 

 been drawn from the flowers standing by ones, twos, or threes, in 

 or on their receptacles, are absolutely null ; for they merely indi- 

 cate sexual conditions, not specific difierences. 



§ 16. The Flowers of Palms loere probahly at first Bisexual. 



That all palms (or, we might almost say, all plants) had in the 

 remote past bisexual flowers, and have ever been tending towards 

 a complete separation of the sexes, is highly probable ; for the 

 mttltiplication of individuals leads to the division of labour, in the 

 processes of plant-life ^ as well as in those of men ^ tees, ants, and 

 other animals dioelling in communities. 



That the flowers of palms were originally all bisexual and self- 

 fertilized, seems proved also by the existence of peculiarities of 

 organization calculated to facilitate the process, and (though now- 



useless) 



structure 



of the male flowers of Oeonoma is a case in point. The pistils in 

 these flowers (when present at all) are short and included ; and 

 such I suppose to have been their primitive state. The stamens, 

 united below into a tube, have the free portion of the filament 

 folded in at the apex, so as to bring the anthers into contact with 

 the stigmas ; and as the anthers burst bv the eff'ort the filament 



imfold 



stigmas. But the style having grown 



stigm 



accessible to insects, by whose agency they would be more 

 thoroughly fertilized by the pollen of other flowers. The ofi'spring 

 of the long'-styled flowers, being more vigorous, would at length 



