66 THE STEXTGGLB Vm EXISTENOB. 



their final change into ripe fruit ; and the liabiHty to failure from 

 those causes will of course be proportionate to the length of this 

 interval. Thus between the appearance of the flower bud and the 

 maturation of the cor^e of the deodar rqore than a whole year 

 elapses, with t;he consequence, ii\ the severe chmate affected by that 

 species, tha,t seed forrns on an ayerage in only one year out of every 

 three. Similarly, tea^ near its northern limit in India, although, 

 thanljs tp the genia,l temperature during the rainy season, it flowers 

 abundantly every year, not seldpm fails to fgrrti fruit owing tq 

 the heavy frosts of December and January. And sp with Termi- 

 nalia tomentom, &c. On the other h^Ad, the entire activity of the 

 inflorescence bud of sal is accomplished between March and the 

 following June, so that, unless fires are so exceptionally severe as to 

 scorch up every green thing in the crowns of the trees, or insecta 

 are exceptionally nuraerous and destructive, a certain quantity of 

 Sged must be produced every year, 



Some species, like the Hardwickia hinata for instance, produce 

 flower buds generally, or only, in very dry years. Drought has 

 also, no doubt, some influence on the flowering of barnboos, which 

 frequently coincides with, or immediately fqllows, y-ears of scarcity. 

 And, indeed, drought may generally be said to favour the produc- 

 tion of flower-buds by weakening and diminishing the foHage of 

 the trees, and thus giving a flllip tp ses;ual activity, 



Frequency of seeding is also dependent on the degree of densi- 

 ty of the leaf-canopy, some trees, as already stated under (a), re-, 

 quiring a smaller measure of isolation than qthers tp produce 

 flowers and fruit. For instance, it is a matter of cpmnion exp^rir; 

 ence in Assam to find isplated individuals of Mes,ua fen^a loaded 

 with fruit, while the seed-collector wastes his pains in canopied 

 masses of that species, The same is strikingly the case with 

 deodar and the firs in the N, W, ^i^^alayas, 



And generally it may be said that whatever extraneous condi^ 

 tions favour profuseness, alsp favour frequency of seeding. 



(o) Size and transportability of the seed. — -.Large and heavy 

 seeds, like acprns, will drop ahuost vertically on the ground, while 

 the minute seeds of Stepliegifne, Adina, Pieris, &c. will be blown 

 away to considerable distances by the slightest breeze. But large 

 a id heavy seeds alsp may, thanl^s tp winghke or hairy appendages, 

 such as are found \t\ teak, sal, Pterocarpus Marsupium, Termina- 

 lia tomentosa, &c., be wafted away spme distance from the parent 

 tree by wind. When small or light seeds are armed with such ap- 

 pendages, they may be blown away for miles ; e. g. seeds of many 



