136 GENERAL BOTANY 



and this does not happen with very many species. 

 Lastly, their flowers are very minute and imperfect, 

 and are massed together inside a hollow structure which 

 eventually becomes a fruit, of a bright red colour and 

 more or less ' fleshy ', so as to be edible by animals 

 and men. 



Consider again the two common species the Vayai 

 marum or Neem tree, and the Malaivayai marum. 

 These are both trees, they have alternate compound 

 leaves in the one case pinnate, in the other bipinnate. 

 The flowers in both cases are not very large and are 

 borne in large branched inflorescences termed panicles, 

 and consist of five sepals, five petals and a staminal 

 tube bearing ten anthers sessile at the top. The 

 fruit in both is a ' drupe ' containing one hard stone. 

 It is only in the leaves and perhaps the colour of 

 the flowers that these two species differ. In all other 

 respects they are very much alike. 



Take again the three fruiting trees the Custard-apple 

 (Seetah), the Bullock's heart (Ramseetah), and the 

 Sour-sop (Mooklooseetah). These three species are 

 shrubs or small trees, with alternate rather leathery 

 bifarious leaves and short petioles. Their flowers are 

 borne in much the same way, solitary or in close 

 bunches (fascicles). 



In each too, there are three sepals and either three 

 or six petals (three inner and three outer). That is, the 

 sepals and petals are in sets of three, a very unusual 

 number in dicotyledonous plants. They have this 

 too in common that the stamens are very numerous 

 and rather peculiar, having very short filaments 

 and large anthers, each surmounted by a sort of crest 



