96 SPICES 



CHAP. 



about six, frequently commences to produce female 

 flowers, and eventually becomes wholly female. 



The male trees usually appear to have more erect 

 branches and smaller leaves than the females, but I am 

 by no means sure that this is always the case. They 

 are often conspicuously less leafy and shabbier looking 

 on native plantations, but this is attributed to the 

 natives not wasting manure on male trees. The flowers 

 are produced on small cymes from the branches, each 

 cyme a little above a leaf. They have a short, 

 woody stalk about ^ in. long, and several branches, each 

 bearing a number of flowers. The flowers hang down 

 on short green pedicels, and are bell-shaped, with three 

 short triangular lobes, all light yellow and aromatic 

 flavoured. They are more globose and smaller than the 

 female flowers. The walls of the perianth are rather 

 thick, and there is usually some honey inside at the 

 bottom. 



The androecium, or mass of stamens in the centre, 

 consists of a white cylinder terminated by a cone of 

 about twelve narrow linear anthers closely joined 

 together, and reaching to the mouth of the tube of the 

 perianth. 



The female flowers are borne in similar positions 

 to the males, but they are either solitary on simple 

 curved pedicels, or there are three together, but seldom 

 more. They are rather larger than the males and more 

 oval in outline, dilated at the base and narrowed at the 

 tip below the three spreading lobes, rather more fleshy 

 than the males, light yellow and shining, \ in. long. 

 Inside the tube, in place of the staminal column is 

 the ovary, a green conic body ending in a pair of erect, 

 parallel, triangular white stigmas, which nearly fill up 

 the mouth of the tube. Like the males they contain a 

 quantity of nectar at the base of the tube, and are fleshy 

 and aromatic to the taste, having the same flavour as the 

 nutmeg. I have occasionally met with fasciated flowers, 

 two being joined together by their sides. 



The fruit when ripe is one of the most beautiful in 



