18 BULLETIN 542, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



not be found on the Sandersha tree in the Plant Introduction Garden 

 at Miami. This characteristic is of importance, in that it gives the 

 tree a greater opportunity to set fruit; often the attacks of the 

 anthracnose fungus are most severe when a tree is in bloom, and the 

 entire crop of flowers is destroyed. In some varieties this means a 

 crop f aimre, since the tree will not produce any more flowers during 

 the season; but in the Sandersha (if early in the season) it would 

 merely mean that the flowers which happened to be present at the 

 time the fungus attack occurred would be lost and the flowers which 

 appeared later might happen to strike more favorable weather, when 

 the ravages of the fungus were less severe, and a crop of fruit result. 

 Many of the seedling races possess the ability to flower a second time if 

 one crop is destroyed by fungi. In fact, H. A. Van Hermann states 

 that he has seen seedlings in Cuba flower four times during the winter 

 and early spring months before they succeeded in setting a crop of 

 fruit. The first three crops of flowers, coming at a time when the 

 weather encouraged the growth of fungi, were lost and the tree was 

 forced to bloom again. In case the first crop of flowers results in a 

 good setting of fruit there is no further production of flowers during 

 the season, according to Van Hermann. 



PROFUSION OF BLOOM. 



Sometimes the entire tree comes into bloom at one time, covering 

 itself with flowers; again, one side of the tree may flower, while the 

 rest of the tree shows no buds, or the flowering may be confined to a 

 small section of the tree, which probably represents the branchlets 

 arising from one main limb. This corresponds to the habit of growth 

 exhibited by the mango, which is noted but not explained by 

 Schimper. 1 Frequently the young branchlets over a small portion 

 of the tree will come in flush while the rest of the tree is dormant. It 

 was noticed during the season of 1915 that a number of Mulgoba 

 trees produced flowers over only a small proportion of their surfaces. 

 It might be expected that the remainder of the tree would flower at 

 another time, but this is by no means always the case. 



PROPORTION OF PERFECT TO STAMINATE FLOWERS. 



It is true that some varieties which bear heavy crops are char- 

 acterized by a large percentage of perfect flowers, while others which 

 are known to be unusually regular in fruiting, although they may not 

 produce such heavy crops, are characterized by a rather low per- 

 centage of perfect flowers. 



The Philippine race, which sometimes produces enormous crops, 

 with several fruits in each cluster, often has more perfect than 

 staminate flowers. The No. 11 race, which also produces heavy 



i Schimper, A. F. W. Plant Geography upon a Physiological Basis ... 839 p. Oxford, 1903. 



