110 SPICES 



CHAP. 



that the female flowers are tinged with green at the 

 base, but are usually entirely yellow coloured. 



Dr. Oxley recommends the destruction of the 

 hermaphrodite trees, as giving an inferior product, and 

 this, I think, is advisable. 



The male trees are usually exterminated by the 

 native planter as soon as they have developed enough 

 to show their flowers, and so become distinguishable. 

 The tree takes about seven years to grow before the 

 sex is discoverable by the flowers, and a planter may 

 have the mortification to discover, after long years 

 of patient cultivation, that too many of his plants are 

 males. All kinds of ideas have therefore sprung up as 

 to the possibility of distinguishing the future sex of the 

 plant by the form of the seed or seedling. The Malays 

 affirm that the male seeds are rounder in the back, and 

 those that will become females are flatter. The Chinese 

 say that seed with rounded backs produce female, and 

 those with a ridge on the back male trees. 



Prestoe, who studied the plant in Trinidad, said 

 that he could tell the sexes by the foliage, even in the 

 seedlings. The male has leaves broader towards the 

 point than in the middle, with a much longer point, 

 with the veins much more roundly curved in towards 

 the tip than in the female, which has more perfectly 

 elliptical leaves with straighter nerves. I find in 

 Singapore something similar, but, as the leaves vary 

 very much on the same tree, and, as Prestoe remarks, 

 one may find elliptical leaves on the male tree and 

 obovate leaves on the female trees, it is not very easy 

 to distinguish the sexes by the leaves with absolute 

 certainty. Planters of experience may, however, dis- 

 tinguish them more or less accurately by eye. 



The adult flowering, or at least well-grown, male 

 may be distinguished by its more straight branches and 

 narrower or smaller leaves, but even that is not certain. 

 In the Malacca plantations this was rather well marked, 

 and male trees could be distinguished at some distance, 

 but I found here the difference in general appearance 



