THE FLOWER BEHAVIOK OK AVOCADOS 



165 



ill the oreliards. On Juno 8th at the last census which the writer 

 was abl(^ to make, a total of 173 fruits were setting and some of 

 them were nearly an inch in diameter. A heavy wind storm 

 during- the summer stripped most of the fruit from the orchard 

 of Mr. Thomas Sheddon in which many of the fruits were. The 

 ])ollinations were chiefly made in six rather widely separated 

 oi'cliards and the writer was unable to secure data as to the 

 number of fruits that did mature. On June 8th fruit was de- 

 veloping to 5 per cent, of the flowers cross-pollinated. 



The results of the hand pollinations clearly indicate that the 

 relations of pollination to fruit setting are not readily to be de- 

 termined for avocados by hand pollinations as they may be for 

 many other types of plants. The percentages of sets thus far 

 obtained by this method are too low to be of much significance. 

 Either the pistils, or pollen, or both can not be used with success 

 except during a jiarticular and perhaps very limited period, or 

 the pollinations are not made in the way necessary to success, or 

 it may l)e that a large nuijority of the flowers produced are not 

 able to set and mature fruit to any land of pollination! 



Fruit-setting by tented trees with bees enclosed 



The extent to which avocado trees are able to produce fruit 

 without cross-pollination may, it would seem, be determined by 

 enclosing an entire tree in a cheesecloth house or tent during 

 the entire period of floAvering and supplying a hive of bees to 

 make the pollinations. This was done during the season of 1925 

 in the orchard of Mr. W. J. Krome at Homestead, Florida. The 

 data on the fruit setting were secured by Mr. Savage after the 

 writer had left Florida. 



A tree of each of the varieties Linda, Panchoy, Taft, and 

 Trapp were tented. The selection of these particular varieties 

 was fortunate in that it allowed tests for several different types 

 of flower behavior. 



On May 29th, about eight weeks after the close of the bloom- 

 ing season the Taft tree which had been tented had seven fruits.. 

 Two other Taft trees of about the same size standing close by 

 and subjected to open orchard pollination bore 44 and 68 fruits 



