IN CEYLON. 75 
pedicel becoming the main peduncle of another cyme. (See 
pi. X., figs. 7-8.) 
It is obvious from the descriptions given that the inflores¬ 
cences of the male and female are similar in their phases of 
development, the only difference being one of degree, since 
the female more often than not consists of a' single flower 
having a pair of bracts at right angles to the antero-posterior 
axis, or with two to four bracts along its peduncle. The 
solitary female flower with its concomitant structures is an 
exact representation of the early stages of the complex 
inflorescence of the male. It is quite probable that the whole 
of the Ceylon species of Diospyros can be traced back to a 
type of reproductive organs in which the flowers of an 
inflorescence were numerous and hermaphrodite. 
Variation ,—Though the solitary flower or inflorescence is 
fairly constant for the sex of the species, it is not by any 
means strictly so. The female flower, though occurring 
solitary in the majority of our species, is liable to be 
replaced by a simple dichasial cyme. This is particularly 
frequent in D. acuta, D. sylvatica, and D. Ebenum, and it is 
probably only a question of further observation to establish 
the same tendency on the part of the female flower in other 
species. 
The variation on the male side is much more conspicuous. 
In D oppositifolia, for instance, instead of a male inflores¬ 
cence of many flowers, there may be a solitary male flower ; 
in D. Toposia we may observe every variation from a single 
flower to a complex inflorescence of eighteen flowers. 
This variation on the male side is not of any serious 
consequence to the plant, since the number of male flowers 
is always greatly in excess of the female. On an average 
there are about six times as many male flowers as female 
flowers in monoecious species, and probably a still greater 
proportion of males in those species which are not monoe¬ 
cious ; hence, in the general characters of the inflorescence 
and individual flowers there is considerably more variation 
on the male than on the female side. 
