14 THE DATE PALM. 



found a considerable number of trees in which both male 

 flowers and female flowers were met with on the same 

 branch of an inflorescence. In the same inflorescence I have 

 usually found hermaphrodite flowers, i.e., containing both 

 carpels and stamens. Such flowers each contained three, more or 

 less functional carpels and two to six more or less functional 

 stamens (see illustration No. 19, opposite). In cases where the 

 number of functional stamens was near the maximum, the 

 number of functional carpels was usually nearly nil and vice 

 versa. Trees which contain both unisexual and hermaphrodite 

 flowers are described as " polygamous." 



In polygamous trees the lengths of the small branches of 

 the flower-clusters are usually between the lengths of the small 

 branches of the ordinary male flower-cluster and those of corres- 

 ponding branches of the ordinary female flower -cluster. Other 

 characters which can be detected at a distance are also rather 

 mixed. These trees are very interesting, and I should be glad 

 if people seeing them would mark them and inform us of them. 

 If they are marked with white paint at a height of six or seven 

 feet from the ground so as to be out of reach of farm animals and 

 not accessible without effort to small boys, the marks usually 

 persist for several years. 



Differences be- 11. In purchasing suckers (off-shoots) one 



tween male and -, T -t , i 



female suckers. may DC Supplied With 



(i) male off-shoots ; 



(ii) female off-shoots from inferior varieties of trees ; and 

 (in) seedling plants ; 

 in place of good female suckers. 



Male trees have usually more thorny and stiffer leaflets 

 than females. Every variety of female date plant, however, 

 differs to a greater or less extent in these respects from every 

 other variety. Differences Of this sort between varieties of 

 females are fairly constant the plants where varieties are bred 

 being propagated by off-shoots but they are often very slight. 

 Male trees are usually propagated by seeds, therefore these 



