MB HIEEN, ON EBENACE^E. 59 



flowers. Cymes in most cases few-flowered in both sexes, especially in the female sex in 

 which the flowers are usually fewer or solitary. In those cases in which the flowers are 

 solitary, the presence of bracts on the peduncles or at their base often indicates the 

 tendency to a more numerously flowered cyme. In the genus Euclea the cymes are often 

 racemose. In some species of Diospyros the short cymes are arranged close together towards 

 the extremities of the branches and not in the axils of fully developed leaves, so that 

 the inflorescence puts on the appearance of being terminal, as for example in Diospyros 

 discolor. 



Flowers in the great majority of species dioacious, but with an occasional tendency to 

 a polygamous condition, and in the genus Royena chiefly hermaphrodite ; nearly always 

 regular, 3-7-merous but usually tetramerous or pentamerous, in the genus Royena generally 

 pentamerous, in Euclea never trimerous, and in Mala mostly trimerous ; fragrant or without 

 scent. 



In some cases that monstrous condition called phyllomania, in which imbricated bracts 

 take the place and give the appearance of flower-buds, is met with, as for example in 

 Diospyros flavicans and D. Zollingeri ; and D. platyphylla is at present known only in this 

 state. In other cases male flowers become double (flore plena] by conversion of stamens 

 into petaloid organs, as for instance in Maba lamponga. 



Male flowers usually with a rudiment of an ovary which is hairy or glabrous in corre- 

 spondence with the hairy or glabrous ovary which is developed in the female plant of the 

 same species. Sometimes however in the male plant the ovary is completely obsolete and 

 the receptacle is the only representative of it. 



Female flowers usually thicker than the male, and in most species furnished with sta- 

 minodes which however are commonly fewer in number than the stamens of the corre- 

 sponding male plant, or without staminodes as in the great majority of species of the genus 

 Euclea and in the section Ferreola of the genus Maba. 



Calyx synsepalous (gamosepalous), inferior, lobed to various depths or indistinctly lobed 

 or even in a few species of Diospyros and Maba truncate and entire, and in D. Toposia 

 closed in (male) bud and bursting irregularly as the flower opens, persistent, commonly 

 campanulate and not reflexed in the flower, often accrescent and either erect or spreading 

 or reflexed and sometimes plicate in the fruit, in a few species as in Diospyros Ebenum 

 with an internal elevated rim at the top of the tube in fruit and the lobes spreading or 

 reflexed. Rarely the calyx is irregular, the lobing being chiefly on one side, as in Maba 

 ovalifolia. Calyx usually greenish and when hairy usually clothed with a shorter indumen- 

 tum than that of the corolla; as exceptional cases it is whitened inside in Diospyros gra- 

 cilipes, and violaceo-pruinose in the fruit of D. pruinosa. ^Estivation of calyx various, valvate 

 imbricated or contorted, and when contorted sinistrorsely so (as seen from inside). 



Corolla sympetalous (gamopetalous), hypogynous, usually isomerous with the calyx, 

 lobed to various depths in different species, usually exceeding the calyx and often greatly 

 BO, hypocrateriform, tubular, campanulate, urceolate, globose or even rotate ; often hirsute 

 sericeous or otherwise pubescent, especially on the back of the lobes, but sometimes glabrous 

 outside, commonly glabrous inside, but in a few species hairy on both sides ; subcoriaceous 

 or fleshy; deciduous or occasionally marcescent and detached at the top of the fruit or 



82 



