Wester: Carica Papaya 1-43 



nate flowers to the pistillate. All the male flower-buds on the 

 plant were picked before they opened to prevent a possible con- 

 veyance of pollen from them by the wind to the flowers not bagged. 

 Twenty-three flowers were numbered as they opened and the dif- 

 ferences in their structure noted. Seven of these were not bagged. 

 Of the flowers that did not set fruit, two had small ovaries with 

 stigma reduced to a stigmatic area at the apex of the ovary, one 

 of these two not being bagged. Five fruits were injured by insects 

 so that they dropped or ripened prematurely and one was cut to 

 give the other fruits more room. The first fruit was picked April 

 23, 1906, and the last June 26. As they were tested each fruit 

 was weighed then cut through the center longitudinally with a 

 sharp knife and an outline of the fruit and cavity traced on a paper. 

 The dried seed from each fruit was also weighed. That the her- 

 maphrodite flowers do not need external aid in pollination and 

 that they are fertile with their own pollen was fully demonstrated, 

 as in no instance were the flowers hand-pollinated. The chances 

 that the unbagged flowers were fertilized by the wind were also 

 exceedingly slight, as no male plants were growing in the vicinity. 

 The supposition that the characters of the flower might be corre- 

 lated with the form and size of the fruit was fully borne out and is 

 best illustrated in the accompanying photograph (fig. 2) ot trie 

 tracings of six fruits. By referring to the following notes ; corre- 

 sponding to the numbers above the outlined fruits it Will be seen 

 that where the ovary was small and slender, with rays in the stigma 

 nearly aborted, the fruits grew comparatively small, cylindrical ana 

 oblong, almost solid, with exceedingly small seed-cavity contain n 

 few seeds, while where the pistil was normal, or nearly so 

 fruits grew large, more or less angular, with the apical end dis- 

 tended, and the cavity containing a large number <>f seeds. 

 { Unfortunately, no fruits matured from flowers where the stigma 



was rayless, as the fruits dropped, being injured by insects, 

 following notes all refer to hermaphrodite flowers 



No., October 5 , . 9 o, ^rb»^;*« 

 lender; stigma reduced to s.igmat.c area a apex o y 



one short ray like f.gure i,c; "^ *f^ ' seed ° 2 gra ms. 

 600. grams ; seed-cavity small ; we.ght of dned S 



(figure 2, no. 2.) 



