

354 MANUAL OF TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL FRUITS 



Japanese sorts, and to H. H. Hume of Florida for his investi- 

 gations of cultural problems. The name of Frank N. Meyer, 

 late agricultural explorer for the Department of Agriculture, 

 will be remembered by horticulturists in connection with the 

 introduction of Chinese varieties. 



The kaki is a deciduous tree growing up to 40 feet in height 

 (though there are dwarf varieties which remain smaller than 

 this), and having usually a round open crown. The leaves 

 are ovate-elliptic, oblong-ovate, or even obovate in outline, 

 acuminate at the apex, glabrous above and finely pubescent 

 beneath, and 3 to 7 inches long. While it has usually been 

 supposed that the kaki is dioecious, or rarely polygamous, 

 Hume l has shown that a single tree may produce three kinds of 

 flowers, perfect, staminate, and pistillate, in varying combina- 

 tions. All of these are borne upon the current season's growth 

 and open shortly after the shoots and leaves are developed. 

 Staminate flowers are borne in three-flower cymes in the leaf- 

 axils ; the calyx and corolla are four-lobed and the latter has 

 sixteen to twenty-four stamens inserted upon it in two rows. 

 The pistillate flowers are solitary and axillary and have a large 

 leaf-like calyx, a four-parted light yellow corolla, eight abortive 

 stamens, and a flattened or globose, eight-celled ovary sur- 

 mounted by a short four-parted style and much-branched 

 stigma. Perfect flowers are intermediate in character between 

 the staminate and the pistillate, and are most commonly asso- 

 ciated with the former. Hume says: "Up to this time they 

 have not been discovered on any varieties of the fixed pistillate- 

 flowering type. In other words, it appears that the perfect 

 flowers are a development from the staminate form and not 

 from the pistillate form." It may be observed that the kaki 

 corresponds in this respect to the papaya, in which perfect 

 flowers are sometimes developed on trees which are normally 

 staminate but never on those which are pistillate. 



1 Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., XXII, 5, 1913. 



