9L 



IGI 



% 



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the currant we have the largest berries containing the most seed, 

 as is the case with the grape. In the same bunch berries may 

 be found containing three to eighteen seeds. 



In Focke's work 



Cycads. 



Die Pflanzen Mischllnge 



he states that 



female plants of Cycads often produce apparently perfect cones 

 in greenhouses in Europe, yet their seed contains no embryo^ 



Date. Ph(enix dactylifera, L. (Palm/e). 



h 



In the date the epicarp is the outer brownish skin, the pulpy 

 matter is t4ie mesocarp, and the paper-like lining is the endocarp 

 covering the hard seed. This seed is composed of horny albu- 

 men with a groove down tJ^e front and the embryo placed at the 

 back. The two sexes are borne on distinct trees, and the female 

 tree is usually fertilized artificially. In India, Arabia, and 



I 



elsewhere, this is done before the flower-spathes open, by boring 

 a hole in the sheath of the female flowers and insertintr therein a 



few bits of the male panicle^ Theophrastus was acquainted with 

 this method, and Pliny also had knowledge of the necessity. 



The fruit of the wild date consists more of seed than of pulp, 

 and altogether is only about one-fourth the size of the Arabian 

 kind brought annually to Calcutta for sale^ On the oasis of 

 Sirv^ah, four kinds were seen by St. John^, the Sultana, a long 

 blue one ; Farayah, white and said not to grow in Egypt; the 

 Saidi, a common date; the VVeddee, good only for camels and 

 donkeys ; also a very luscious yellow sort Dr. James Richard- 

 son found no less than forty-six sorts cultivated in the oases of 

 Northern Africa^, Those of Gomara, says Mueller*^, are large 



and contain no seed. Seedless dates are mentioned by Theo- 

 phrastus^, the third century before Christ, and by Pliny^ in the 



1 Gard. Chron. Apr. 14, i3S3, p. 466. 



2 Stocks, Hooker's Journ. of Bot. vii. 551. 



3S. N. Robinson, Jour. Au.ric.-IIort. Soc, ix. quoted by Firminger, Gard. in 



Ind. p. 172. 



4 Adventures in the Libyan Desert, p. 188. 



5 Archer, Profit, plants, p. 31. 



6 Mueller, Sel. PI. p, 162. 



yTheop. De plant. Bodaeus a Stapel ed. 1644, 90. 102 



8 Pliny, lib. xiii, c. 7. 



*^ 



