84 
WRIGHT : THE GENUS DIOSPYROS 
It is therefore possible to make a complete series from 
flowers on the same tree, having staminate flowers at one 
end, passing through hermaphrodite to female flowers. 
In other trees of the same species the sex is either male 
or female and is fixed. 
D. Ebenum is included under this heading, and though 
the dioecious condition is the most common form for this 
species, yet observation of fresh material in the forest has 
revealed the frequent occurrence of the monoecious and 
polygamous state. The monoecious state consists of female 
flowers often ripening into good fruit on a pedicel in a 
male inflorescene. The monoecious condition in D. Ebenum 
is unlike that in D. oppositifolia or D. acuta, since the 
female flowers do not occur solitary but as sporadic 
members of a male cyme. On first examining such a 
monoecious inflorescence the thought uppermost in my 
mind was that here we were dealing with a male inflores¬ 
cence, some members of which had reverted to the con¬ 
dition of a potential gynæcium, but this idea was abandoned 
in consequence of the fact that each of the female flowers 
when thus occurring possessed eight staminodes each with 
a barren anther, and an eight-celled ovary. We therefore 
have true female flowers occurring in the same cluster 
as the males. 
The female flowers may occur in any part of the inflores¬ 
cence, but the most usual position is that terminating the 
inflorescence and therefore occupying the central position. 
Since the central flower is the first formed we therefore 
obtain a time relation in the production of sex, the female 
flowers being produced first and the male flowers afterwards. 
The production of female flowers in the axil of the 
youngest leaves, and that of the males in the older leaves in 
D. acuta and D. oppositifolia is a sequence to be correlated 
with this. 
In consequence of the complex relationships in species 
described it is well to realize that the monoecious state in 
