POLLINATION OF THE MANGO. 3 
of these characteristics; it produces comparatively few pollen grains, 
often not more than 200 in an anther, and never more than 1,200 
in any that were examined; and it must be remembered that this 
represents the total number produced by one flower, since there is 
commonly but one fertile stamen. The pollen grains show a decided 
tendency to cling together, especially in damp weather; and even 
on bright, sunny days it was found difficult to dislodge them from 
the anther by subjecting them to the full draft of an electric fan for 
30 minutes, most of the grains still clinging to the anther at the 
end of that time. The stigma is exceedingly small and not pro- 
vided with projections of any sort to assist in catching pollen. 
On the other hand, the production of honey for the attraction of 
insects shows a distinct adaptation to insect pollination. The 
structure of the flower is such as to entitle it, apparently, to be 
placed in Mttller's biological class "A", or " flowers with freely 
exposed honey." 1 Flowers of this class are visited by insects of 
several orders, from the short-tongued Coleoptera to the long- 
tongued Lepidoptera, and members of both these orders, as well 
as of Diptera and Hymenoptera, have been observed on mango 
flowers, as will be described later on. 
STRUCTURE OF THE FLOWER. 
The mango is polygamous and produces its flowers on terminal 
panicles varying in length from a few inches up to 2 feet, each panicle 
carrying from 200 or 300 up to more than 4,000 flowers, of which 
only 2 or 3 per cent are perfect in some instances ; in others as many 
as 60 or 75 per cent. (PL I.) The character of the panicle and 
the number of flowers produced upon it vary with different varieties, 
as also the length of time they remain in bloom. Some varieties re- 
main in flower but 10 days, others for nearly 2 months, and on one 
panicle of the Sandersha 4,200 flowers were counted which opened 
at the rate of 20 to 240 a day, extending over a period of 40 days. 
The individual flower 2 is subsessile, 6 to 8 millimeters in diameter 
when the corolla is outspread, the calyx composed of five ovate- 
lanceolate, finely pubescent, concave sepals and the corolla of five 
elliptic lanceolate to obovate-lanceolate petals, 3 to 4 millimeters 
long, whitish, with three or four fleshy orange ridges toward the 
base, and inserted at the base of a fleshy, almost hemispherical 
disk, obscurely 5-lobed and usually about 2 millimeters in diameter. 
In the perfect flower the disk is surmounted by a globose-oblique 
1 Muller, Hermann. Alpenblumen . . . p. 485. Leipzig, 1881. 
Knuth, P. E. O. W. Handbook of Flower Pollination ... v. 1, p. 64. Oxford, 1906. 
2 The structure and development of the mango flower have been briefly discussed by Burns and Prayag. 
(Burns, W., and Prayag, S. H. Notes on the inflorescence and flowers of the mango tree. In Poona 
Agr. Col. Mag., March, 1911.) 
