42 JOURNAL, BOMB A 7 NA TUBAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



terminal ; after many years' growth and the production of a stout 

 woody trunk, the growing point ceases to produce leaves and develops 

 a gigantic inflorescence. This so exhausts the plant that, after fruit- 

 ino-, it dies* In most cases, however, the spaclix is axillary and 

 withers away after fruiting. It is formed in the sheathed axil of a 

 leaf but often does not develop until after the subtending leaf has 

 fallen, when the spaclix is therefore below the leaf-crown. In other 

 cases again, as in the Sabal maiirkiceforme the large flower-shoots 

 appear among the green leaves. These relations are constant for 

 every species, sometimes even for a whole genus. 



Before the flowers open a sugary sap in considerable quantities 

 flows to the large spadix. The inhabitants of the tropics learned in 

 early times how to obtain that sap, which by fermentation changes 

 into a favourite intoxicating drink, the toddy. Each spadix is enclosed 

 in an often enormous spathe, or each branch is separately sheathed by 

 smaller spathes. After some time the spathe becomes torn along defi- 

 nite lines by the rapidly growing flower-shoot and either separates com- 

 pletely at the base or remains to sheathe the stalk and lower branches. 



The flowers are small and inconspicuous, generally of a white, pale- 

 yellow, or green colour, but, as if to make up for this defect, they 

 are mostly produced in such masses as to present an eminently strik- 

 ing and imposing appearance. A single spathe of the Date-Palm 

 contains about 12,000 male flowers, and Metroxylon rumphii has 

 been computed to have no less than 208,000 flowers in one spathe, 

 or about 624,000 upon a single tree. 



The flowers are sessile or sometimes embedded in the surface 

 of a fleshy spadix, as in the male inflorescence of the Brab Tree 

 (Borassiis). They are arranged in a close or loose spiral, or more 

 rarely are distichous. As a rule the flowers are unisexual, the male 

 and female often occupying different parts of the same inflorescence, 

 e.g., a few females occur at the base of the branches, whilst the 

 upper part is thickly crowded with males, or the branches of the spike 

 bear female flowers in the lower and male in the upper half. In other 

 species, the two sexes may be mixed, usually one female between two 

 males. In this case the two male flowers appear in succession and then 

 the female, so that the spike is for the time being unisexual. The male 

 and female flowers may vastly differ in size, as in the Brab Tree where 

 the enormous female flowers contrast strongly with the minute male. 



