THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON. 43 



The flowers are regular and follow the very general formula of 

 monocotyledonous plants. We have therefore usually 3 sepals, 3 

 petals, 6 stamens or a multiple of it, and 3 carpels for the excep- 

 tional hermaphrodite flower, while the stamens are rudimentary 

 (staminodes) in the female and the carpels in the male (pistillode). 

 The sepals and petals are tough and persistent, leathery or fleshy in 

 their structure. The sepals are generally smaller than the other- 

 wise similar petals, and only in rare cases is the corolla entirely 

 covered by the calyx. Sometimes a whorl of stamens is wanting, or 

 there is an indefinite number. The powdery pollen is produced in 

 great quantities, escaping in clouds from the large male spikes. The 

 pollination-methods of the palms want investigation. Wind-pollina- 

 tion is probably most general, as e.g., in the Cocoa-nut Palm, though 

 some palms, e.g., Sabal and Cliamcedorea, are said to be entomophi- 

 lous. The sweet smell of the inflorescence and the great mass of 

 flowers which form a conspicuous object, seem to be in favour of 

 insect-pollination. Where the male and female flowers are close 

 together on the same spike, self-pollination is excluded by the well- 

 marked protandry which we have already mentioned. 



The ovary consists almost throughout of 3 carpels which are either 

 quite free or completely united. In the latter case the ovary is 

 generally trilocular. The style is short and the ovules, one for each 

 carpel, are either anatrapous, hemitropous, or rarely orthotropous. 



Fruit and Seed. — When the fruit ripens, two of the carpels with 

 their ovules may become abortive, as e.g., in the Cocoa-nut, where 

 we find only one seed, though the three carpels are distinctly indi- 

 cated by three longitudinal sutures and by the constant presence of 

 three round scars (germ-pores) on the hard endocarp. The fruit is 

 either a berry or a drupe ; in the latter case the endocarp is usually 

 united to the seed. If the carpels are free, a syncarp of one-seeded 

 fruits results ; if they are united, we shall have a single fruit with 

 one, two or three seeds according to the number of ovules that 

 develop. The fruit in Lepidocaryince (including the Rattans, the 

 Sago-palm, and others) is covered with hard, closely fitting, generally 

 smooth, imbricating scales. 



Compared with the size of the plants, the fruits are generally 

 small ; some are in this respect like peas, as in the Euterpe of tropical 

 America. The common Cocoa-nut is one of the largest; and the 



