IN CEYLON. 75 



pedicel becoming the main peduncle of another cyme. (See 

 pi. X., figs. 7-8.) 



It is obvious from the descriptions given that the inflores- 

 cences of the male and female are similar in their phases of 

 development, the only difference being one of degree, since 

 the female more often than not consists of a single flower 

 having a pair of bracts at right angles to the antero-posterior 

 axis, or with two to four bracts along its peduncle. The 

 solitary female flower with its concomitant structures is an 

 exact representatjon of the early stages of the complex 

 inflorescence of the male. It is quite probable that the whole . 

 of the Ceylon species of Diospyros can be traced back to a 

 type of reproductive organs in which the flowers of an 

 inflorescence were numerous and hermaphrodite. 



Variation. Though the solitary flower or inflorescence is 

 fairly constant for the sex of the species, it is not by any 

 means strictly so. The female flower, though occurring 

 solitary in the majority of our species, is liable to be 

 replaced by a simple dichasial cyme. This is particularly 

 frequent in D. acuta, D. jiylvatica^ andj). Ebenum, and it is 

 probably only a question of further observation to establish 

 the same tendency on the part of the female flower in other 

 species. 



The variation on the male side is much more conspicuous. 

 In D, oppositifolia, for instance, instead of a male inflores- 

 cence of many flowers, there may be a solitary male flower ; 

 in D. Toposia we may observe every variation from a single 

 flower to a complex inflorescence of eighteen flowers. 



This variation on the male side is not of any serious 

 consequence to the plant, since the number of male flowers 

 is always greatly in excess of the female. On an average 

 there are about six times as many male flowers as female 

 flowers in monoecious species, and probably a still greater 

 proportion of males in those species which are not monoe- 

 cious ; hence, in the general characters of the inflorescence 

 and individual flowers there is considerably more variation 

 on the male than on the female side. 



