IN CEYLON. 
71 
Nature of Flower System .—The nature of the flower system 
varies with the species and with the sex of the same species. 
The flowers may be solitary, pedunculate, or sessile, or in the 
form of an inflorescence having each member supported on 
a pedicel of varying length. When the peduncle and each 
lateral pedicel of a cymose inflorescence is very short the 
flowers form what may be conveniently described as a sessile 
cluster. The male and female flowers may each form 
inflorescences ; here both inflorescences may be in the form 
of sessile clusters, as in D. insignis, both inflorescences may 
have pedicellate flowers, as in D. Embryopteris, or the 
members of the female inflorescence may be sessile and the 
males shortly pedicellate, as occasionally occurs in D. 
Ebenum. 
On the other hand, the females may occur solitary and the 
males as an inflorescence ; under this group we may have 
the female flower and each male flower markedly pedicellate, 
as in D. quæsita, or both sessile, as in D. Gardneri ; we may 
also have the female sessile, but males pedicellate, as in 
D. Melanoxylon, or the female pedicellate and the males 
sessile, as in D. oppositifolia. 
Female Flowers. 
In fourteen out of our twenty species the female flowers 
may occur solitary ; in nine of these, viz., D. affinis, D. pru- 
riens, D. oppositifolia, D. quæsita, D. sylvatica, D. crumenata, 
D. Toposia, D. oocarpa, and D. montana, the flower is on a 
peduncle of varying length, whereas in the remaining five, 
D. ovalifolia, D. Melanoxylon, D. Gardneri, D. attenuata, and 
D. Ebenum, the female flowers are sessile. 
In the remaining six species the female flowers form an 
inflorescence which in D. hirsuta, D. insignis, D. Moonii, D. 
Thwaitesii, and D. acuta is a sessile cluster of three to fifteen 
flowers ; but in D. Embryopteris the inflorescence is a cyme 
of three flowers, each of which is attached to the short 
peduncle by means of a short stout pedicel. 
