PAPAYA CULTURE IX HAWAII 
19 
of one section produce plants entirely of one sex or even an unusu- 
ally large percentage of one sex. In a second experiment, begun 
in 1927. the seeds used were taken from the fruit of a normal pis- 
tillate plant of dioecious type. This fruit was cut crosswise into 
three equal parts, and the seeds of each part were respectively desig- 
nated as basal, medial, and terminal. Each of the three kinds of 
resulting young 
plants were set sep- 
arately in three 
rows. " When the 
plants came into 
flower there were 
staminate and pis- 
tillate forms of the 
purely dioecious 
type, and monoe- 
cious and polyg- 
amous forms, and 
also one apparently 
monoecious form 
which was sterile, 
since it blossomed 
but failed to set 
fruit. Kesults of 
this experiment, like 
those of the former, 
indicated that seeds 
capable of produc- 
ing plants of a par- 
ticular sex are not 
confined to any one 
part of a fruit. 
Only one experi- 
ment was conducted 
at the station to de- 
termine the ability 
to select from a 
fresh fruit such 
seeds as will pro- 
duce a definite sex 
of the papaya. In 
1926 the station re- 
ceived two small 
packages of papaya 
seeds from G. P. 
Wilder, of Hono- 
lulu, who was visiting in Tahiti, Society Islands. In his presence 
these seeds had been sorted out of a ripe papaya by a gardener from 
Anam who claimed that he could determine the sex of the dioecious 
type from the appearance of the individual seeds. He separated the 
seeds into two groups which he designated as " he's " and " she's ". 
These seeds were grown at the station in separate rows, and the plants 
flowered in the early part of the summer of 1928. All the " he's " 
proved to be staminate but one ; likewise, all the " she's " were stami- 
Figure 17. — The Solo strain produces two forms of fruit, 
but generally retains the desirable flavor characteristic 
of tlie strain 
