IN CEYLON. 
145 
Fruit oblong or subglobose with wide base and flattened 
top, green, glandular, and covered with short thick-walled 
unicellular hairs, 40-60 mm. high, 30-40 mm. diameter : 
fruiting calyx enlarged, total diameter 25 mm., flat ; seg¬ 
ments 10 mm. long, upper surface brown or green, rounded 
or oblong. (See pi. X., fig. 10.) 
At Hiniduma there appears to be a variety having a 
globose-apiculate fruit about the size of ripe fruits in D. 
Ebenum or D. affinis. 
Seeds 2-4 per fruit, oval or elliptical, or wedge-shaped ; 
smooth brown testa, 25 mm. long, 10 mm. wide ; endosperm 
copious, equable. Embryo white. 
Seedlings epigeal, cotyledons detached early, epicotyledo- 
nary system not well developed, and in seedlings 50 mm. long, 
very minute ; hypocotyl white, thick, rather short, 40-50 mm. 
long, suggesting affinity with D. insignis and D. dodecandra. 
Epicotyledonary stem very long, 60-70 mm., longer than 
in any other species of Diospyros, suggesting D. insignis, 
except that it has no young leaves in the lower part ; first 
epicotyledonary leaves form an opposite pair, but at different 
levels ; 3 traces per cotyledon, 1 trace per epicotyledonary 
leaf ; cotyledonary xylem splits to form 10-15 groups ; 
epicotyledonary traces not well developed, and their courses 
are difficult to follow. (See pi. XVII., fig. 4.) 
Timber red when freshly felled, deepening to reddish- 
brown on exposure. Black heartwood rarely of great size, 
usually numerous black strands irregularly distributed 
through the brown wood. This species is only rarely felled 
for the ebony it contains. (See pi. III., fig. 12.) 
The tracheal elements contain abundance of a gummy 
deposit,yellow to brown in colour ; contents in parenchyma 
are brown and granular. The per cent, number of tracheal 
elements is low and that of the fibres high : the differentia¬ 
tion of all the secondary elements is relatively constant. 
Rings of growth are often conspicuous to naked eye. 
Uses .— 1 The ripe fruits are steeped in water and afterwards 
eaten by some natives. The timber of freshly felled trees 
