78 
WEIGHT : THE GENUS DIOSPYROS 
. Dioecious only .—This condition prevails in D. Toposia, D. 
quæsita, D. pruriens, D. crumenata, D. ovalifolia, D. Melan- 
oxylon, D. attenuata, D. montana, D. Moonii, and D. oocarpa. 
In these species the female flowers may be solitary or form 
a simple or complex dichasium, having the staminodes of 
each flower with barren anthers. The males may form a 
cymose inflorescence, sessile or otherwise, in each flower of 
which the pistil is absent, rudimentary or represented by a 
bunch of hairs. It is highly probable that if more fresh 
material is examined at least the polygamous and very 
possible the monoecious condition will be observed. In 
many of the species included under this head the male 
flowers are always very numerous, often as many as fifteen 
to each inflorescence, and hence the possibility of variation 
and occurrence of polygamy. In some of the species, notably 
D. quæsita and D. Toposia, the rudimentary pistil of many 
male flowers is often of conspicuous size, and a transverse 
section reveals the presence of irregularly outlined cavities. 
Further, it is not unlikely that if the staminodes of the 
female flowers be examined fresh they will yield pollen 
grains. Very little material has been examined microscopi¬ 
cally from this point of view. 
The number of members in the staminal whorl and their 
orientation in the male and female flowers of the same species 
is sometimes widely different ; for instance, in D. quæsita the 
female flower possesses five staminodes which alternate with 
the corolla lobes, whereas in the male flowers an indefinite 
number of stamens occur clustered together in the centre of 
the flower, and have no individual orientation to one another 
or to the members of other whorls. Similarly, great 
differences exist in the staminal whorl of D. pruriens. 
In D. Melanoxylon the staminal whorl is very unstable in 
both sexes, there being ten, sixteen, or twenty stamens in the 
male, sometimes with the filaments free, at other times united 
in pairs, and twelve or more staminodes in the female flower 
having no fixed orientation to the four-to seven-lobedacces¬ 
sory whorls. 
