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longer than wide have seeds which tend to produce all pistillate 

 plants, or only a small proportion of staminate ones. Seeds 

 from thick fruits are more apt to produce an even distribution 

 of staminate and pistillate trees. 



While these three species, coconut, banana, and papaya, are 

 the commonest fruits in cultivation, many other species are 

 also commonly seen. Mangos, Mangifera indica, are very 

 frequent. The tree is large, with a spreading crown, and resem- 

 bles in habit some of our American oaks. The trees are fre- 

 quently scared with a bolo, under the superstition that such 

 treatment makes them bear more fruit. Chicos, Achras Sapota, 

 grow on the same species of tree that produces chicle gum in 

 Mexico, and was of course introduced into the Philippines from 

 that country. The fruits are brown, the size of a lemon, rough 

 on the outside, brown and juicy within, and taste like an over- 

 ripe pear flavored with maple. The natives are perfectly 

 willing to sell or eat the fruit, but they are superstitious about 

 the tree, and are said to refuse to plant it. Other trees are the 

 arnatto, Bixa orellana, whose crimson fruits are used to color 

 rice; pomelo. Citrus decumana, with yellow fruits like a large 

 grape-fruit, used by the Americans chiefly in salads; cacao; 

 coffee; custard apple, Anona reticulata, and two or three other 

 species of the same genus, and various others. 



All these species are planted in a heterogeneous mixture around 

 the houses, without any semblance of order whatever. The 

 result is that, seen from a distance, the houses appear to be set 

 within a forest. Behind the houses rise the thickets of tall 

 bamboo, and back of the villages lie the small fields of rice or 

 maize or sugar cane, with small patches of several kinds of vege- 

 tables. Probably the commonest of these is the gabi, or taro, 

 Colocasia esculentum. 



After the stranger has established himself in the Philippines, 

 the first impression which comes to him, as it has to every other 

 botanist in the tropics, is the overwhelming vigor of the tropical 

 plant life. All around the college campus, one can see the steady 

 attempt of the jungle to creep in. Some of the worst weeds are 

 trees, and grow with almost unbelievable speed. Around the 



