194 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



characteristics, small, pale yellow, sweetly-scented flowers 

 on long, loosely-branched axillary panicles, may appear 

 partially or fully developed female organs which result in 

 fructification, and such fruit is ostentatiously displayed. 

 The male produces its fruit not as does the female, clinging 

 closely and compact to the stem, but dangling dangerously 

 from the end of the panicles — an example of witless 

 paternal pride. This fruit of monstrous birth does not 

 as a rule develop to average dimensions, and it is gener- 

 ally woodeny of texture and bitter as to flavour, but fully 

 developed as to seeds. 



The true fruit is round, or oval, or elongated, sometimes 

 pear-shaped, and with flattened sides, due to mutual lateral 

 pressure. As many as 250 individual fruits have been 

 counted on a single tree at one and the same time. The 

 heaviest fruit within the. ken of the writer weighed 8 lb. 1 1 oz. 

 They hug the stem closely in compact single rows in pro- 

 gressive stages, the lower tier ripe, the next uppermost 

 nearly so, the development decreasing consistently to the 

 rudiments of flower-buds in the crown of the tree. The 

 leaves fall as the fruit grows, but there is always a crown or 

 umbrella to ward off the rays of the sun. When ripe, the 

 most approved variety is yellow. In the case of the female 

 plant growing out of the way of a male, the fruit is smaller 

 in size, and seedless or nearly so. 



Another curious, if not unique point about this 

 estimable plant is that sometimes within the cavity of 

 a perfect specimen will be found one or two infant 

 naked fruits, likewise apparently perfect. Occasionally 

 these abnormal productions are crude, unfashioned and 

 deformed. 



Ripened in ample light, with abundance of water, and 

 in high temperature, the fruit must not be torn from the 

 tree " with forced fingers rude," lest the abbreviated stalk 

 pulls out a jagged plug, leaving a hole for the untimely air 

 to enter. The stalk must be carefully cut, and the spice- 

 exhaling fruit borne reverently and immediately to the 

 table. The rite is to be performed in the cool of the 



