OF BRITISH INDIA 





Thwaites (1 species), ILwkarl (1 species), T<-ysmann ami liinnindyk (1 spec let), and 

 Kurz (1 species). 



Artocarpus is a monavious melius. The flowers are small and strictly unisexual, and 

 those of each sex are collected on the convex surface of fleshy <-r semi-woody r« ep- 

 tacles. These receptacles vary from global to oblong; they are axillary, either se-de 

 or pedunculate, and have but rarely any involucres or bracts at their base. The male 

 receptacles are, as a rule, much smaller than those bruin.: the female flowed, an 1 they 

 usually occupy the axils of the younger leaves: tjiey are soft and spon in structure, 



and rapidly disappear after the maturation of the pollen. The female receptacles, when 

 ripe, often attain an enormous size; those of tho Jack sometimes measuring three far in 

 lenffth and fifteen inches in diameter. The core of the rc< ptacle in many species is h nl 



and woody at first, becoming only moderately soft even when the anth«. carps are ripe. In 



others, the substance of the receptacle is soft from the first. The surface of the syncar- 

 pium varies from spiny to smooth, according as the anthocarps borne on the ree»-j - 

 tacle are united for part or for the whole of their length. Tho structure of the indi- 

 vidual flowers is very simple, and Forster's original account of it shows that, from the 

 first, it was pretty accurately understood. The male flower has a vary simple peri nth, 

 composed usually of two pieces. In a few of the Ind<>- Malayan special these pier » 

 are bifid at the apex; and in one species this division is continued to tho very b , ><> 

 that the perianth becomes 4-leaved. The pieces are valvate or very slightly imbricate in 

 bud. The flowers have only a single stamen, which has a straight, non-elastic, filament; 

 the anther is ovate or sub-reniform, 2-celled, and is exserted while the pollen is 

 bein^ shed. The male flower contains no rudiment of a pistil. Attached to the recep- 

 tacle between the male flowers there are, in many species, curious and beautiful scales. 

 These scales resemble nails with broad heads. The peltate head is usually ciliate, on 

 the edges at least; sometimes it is 3-Iobed, but usually it is circular. The pedicels of 

 these heads in some species are thickened upwards; in others they are uniformly filiform. 

 In some species (e.g. hirsuta), the scales are flat, ligulate, and not peltate; and, in 

 many species, scales are absent from the male even when present in the female 

 receptacle. The female flowers, like the males, are closely packed together on the 



convex surface of a receptacle. The perianth (which is tubular) in originally united t 



the receptacle by its base, and to its neighbours on each side for a greater or less part 

 of its length. The apices of these p rianths become indurated as they ripen ; and each*, 

 becoming more or less consolidated with its ovary, forms an anthoearp. And it is the 

 amount of union that takes place between the individual anthocarps which determines 



whether the surface of the mature syncarpium is spin) 



perfectly smooth 



In cases where the ripe syncarpium is spiny, the upper part of the tubular perianth of 

 each flower is free and cylindric or conical; in cases where the surface of the ripe 

 receptacle is tubercular, the free part of the individual anthoearp is shorter, broader, 



