AN UNDESIRABLE TYPE 
This is the elongata, a more productive specimen of which was shown in the preceding illus- 
tration (Fig. 9.) 
fore gave no fruit. 
In the present case, a majority of the flowers have been male, and there- 
The goal of the breeder will be to weed out such trees as this and keep 
only those which bear a minimum number of male flowers and a maximum number of 
hermaphrodite flowers. 
from the elongata tree, showing both stamens and pistil. 
improve the papaya by systematic 
breeding. There has been some selec- 
tion on the part of growers who natu- 
rally plant the seeds from particularly 
pleasing fruits. Because other forms 
have been little known and observed, 
the most of such selection has been 
with the dioecious papaya, and here 
there is an inherent difficulty even in 
the way of the scientific breeder. Seed 
from a pistillate tree will necessarily be 
a cross of two individuals. The charac- 
ters of the female plant may be known, 
but those of the male plant are utterly 
unknown. The parent stock from which 
both came may be known, but since 
there is wide variation in the fruit of 
214 
Inserted in the lower left-hand corner is a hermaphrodite flower 
(Fig. 10.) 
two pistillate trees from the same stock 
it is reasonable to suppose that there 
will be the same wide variation in the 
male or staminate trees. The variation 
between the pistillate trees can easily 
be determined because their fruits are 
in evidence and can be tested; but the 
characters which are inherent in the 
male or staminate tree, and which will 
be transmitted by it to its progeny, can 
be determined only through the long 
process of actual hand pollination, the 
sowing of the seed thus produced, and 
the testing of the fruit. Even then 
what portion of its excellent or indif- 
ferent qualities may have been inherited 
from its male parent cannot be known. 
