IN CEYLON. 71 



Nature of Flower System. The nature of the flower system 

 varies with the species and with the sex of the same species. 

 The flowers may be solitary, pedunculate, or sessile, or in the 

 form of an inflorescence having each member supported on 

 a pedicel of varying length. When the peduncle and each 

 lateral pedicel of a cymose inflorescence is very short the 

 flowers form what may be conveniently described as a sessile 

 cluster. The male and female flowers may each form 

 inflorescences ; here both inflorescences may be in the form 

 of sessile clusters, as in D. insignis, both inflorescences may 

 have pedicellate flowers, as in JX Embr y qpteri s, or the 

 members of the female inflorescence may be sessile and the 

 males shortly pedicellate, as occasionally occurs in D. 

 Ebenum. 



On the other hand, the females may occur solitary and the 

 males as an inflorescence ; under this group we may have 

 the female flower and each male flower markedly pedicellate, 

 as in D. qusesita, or both sessile, as in D. Gardneri ; we may 

 also have the female sessile, but males pedicellate, as in 

 D. Melanoxylon, or the female pedicellate and the males 

 sessile, as in D. oppositifolia. 



Female Flowers. 



In fourteen out of our twenty species the female flowers 

 may occur solitary ; in nine of these, viz., D. affinis, D. pru- 

 riens, TX^ oppositifolia, IX quaesita, IX svlyatica, D. crumenata, 

 D. Toposia, IX oocarpa, and D. montana, the flower is on a 

 peduncle of varying length, whereas in the remaining five, 

 JD. oyalifolia, IX Melanoxylon, D. Gardneri, D. attenuata, and 

 D. Ebenum, the female flowers are sessile. 



In the remaining six species the female flowers form an 

 inflorescence which in D. hirsuta, D^ insignia, D. Moonii, D. 

 Thwaitesii, and D. aeutaas a sessile cluster of three to fifteen 

 flowers ; but in D. Embryopteris_the inflorescence is a cyme 

 of three flowers, each of which is attached to the short 

 peduncle by means of a short stout pedicel. 



