182 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 



CHAP. 



How to 

 deterimne 

 the sexes. 



The ma* 

 flowers 



The sexes of the trees can only be made out with certainty 

 when the flowers appear. The staminate flowers are from 

 three to five, or more on a peduncle, and the pistillate flowers 

 are often solitary. Both kinds of flowers are small, of a 

 yellowish colour, and the perianth is bell-shaped with three 

 or four teeth at the top. 



On cutting open the flower longitudinally, with a sharp 

 penknife, the sex may be determined. The anthers are set 

 around the top of a central column ; and, if the flower be 



FIG. i. 



FIG. 2. 



MALE AND FEMALE FLOWERS OF THE NUTMEG. 



FIG. i. Staminate or male flower, with half of the perianth removed to 

 show the stamens. 



FIG. 2. Pistillate or female flower, with half of the perianth removed 

 to show the pistil. 



The female fully open, the yellow pollen may be easily seen. In the 

 pistillate flowers, it will be noticed that the pistil is shorter 

 than the perianth, that it is swollen at the base, and crowned 

 with the stigma which is indistinctly cut into two lobes. 



Male plants occur more numerously than female ones, a 

 writer on the subject stating that this excess is from ten to 

 fifteen per cent. This estimate may, in some circumstances, 

 be too low, for in exceptional instances as many as seventy- 

 Grafting the five per cent, have proved to be males. Should there be too 

 many males on the plantation they may be headed down, 

 and grafted with scions taken from female trees. Mr. P. F. 

 Higgins, of St. Vincent, has grafted nutmegs in this manner ; 



males. 



