68 WRIGHT : THE GENUS DIOSPYROS 



may be said to occur. Often, however, a leaf production 

 may take place without a corresponding one of flowers, this 

 being particularly noticeable in young trees having more 

 than one period of leaf production a year. Again, flowers 

 often appear on old woody twigs independent of leaf 

 production, or recur in the same position year after year, 

 sometimes in the axil of an old persistent leaf, and at other 

 times in the old axil of a fallen leaf. In many trees of j>. 

 Ebejium and D. Toposia the majority of the flowers occur in 

 the axils of new leaves, and therefore appear mainly at one 

 time of the year, but such copious productions of flowers 

 are invariably preceded and followed by periods of minor 

 floral activity when the flowers appear without any definite 

 relation to the leaves. 



It is therefore obvious that no generalizations can be 

 made beyond stating that the greater part of the flower 

 system usually makes its appearance immediately after a 

 copious production of leaves. The importance of realizing 

 the irregular nature of leaf and flower production is great, 

 and one cannot lay too much stress on the fact that in the 

 forests of Ceylon the species of Diospyros have not one fixed 

 time of the year for flower production. In the Sabara- 

 gamuwa districts there is not a month in the year when 

 trees of D. insignis_and IX hirsute are absolutely flowerless. 

 and the fact that trees of the same species growing alongside 

 each other may possess either flower buds, mature flowers, 

 ripe fruits, or no reproductive organs whatever during 

 the same month, is sufficient to allow one to dispute any 

 hypothesis based on the idea of a general seasonal 

 periodicity. 



It may be further stated that many Diospyros trees 

 probably remain flowerless for many years at a time, and the 

 appearance of sexual organs cannot be correlated with the 

 prevailing seasons. This was the opinion of Thwaites and 

 Trimen, and most forest officers still firmly believe that the 

 majority of Ceylon Diospyros trees flower but seldom. 



