H. Martin Leake. 
69 
NOTE ON THE “FRUITING MALE” OF 
PHCENIX DACTYLIFERA L. 
By H. Martin Leake. 
[With Five Text-Figures.] 
IHE date palm, P. dactylifera L., is normally dioecious. The 
occurrence of so-called “ fruiting males ” is not, however, 
unknown. One such instance, occurring in Portugal, is recorded 
in Gard. Chron. ’87, II, p. 530; in this case the male plant is stated 
to have produced a female inflorescence. Other cases are recorded 
by Tourney, Bull. 29, Arizona Exp. Sta.; Charlet, Bull. Soc. Geog. 
d’Alger. 1905; Kearney, U.S. Dep. of Agr. Bur. of Plant Industry 
No. 92 ; and Bois, Rev. Hort. 82 (10), p. 492. 
Kearney writes “The writer saw in February a palm which 
had all the characters of a male .... Nevertheless it bore 
clusters of small seedless dates. Although the only case 
observed by him, this is apparently a rather well-known pheno¬ 
menon.” Bois cites an instance of a plant in which a certain 
number of flowers, on an inflorescence, in other respects typically 
male, develop fruits. 
In all cases it is assumed that the change is from a dioecious, 
to a monoecious, habit. The observations have apparently been 
made on the plant when in fruit and there appears to be no record 
of the details of the flower-structure in such a plant. It may, 
therefore, be of interest to give in greater detail a further instance 
of this phenomenon. 
Attached to the Government Botanic Gardens, Saharanpur, 
Northern India, is a date plantation in which different varieties 
of date palms, imported from various sources, are under cultivation. 
Among these occurs a single plant to which the description given 
by Kearney wotdd apply if the plant were seen in fruit only. 
Unfortunately the source and history of the plants there growing is 
not now traceable and it is impossible, therefore, to say whence 
this particular plant originally came. The attached figures are of 
different flowers all taken from this single plant. It will be seen 
that the change does not consist strictly in the substitution of a 
monoecious for a dioecious habit, but that a whole series of inter¬ 
mediate and hermaphrodite flowers are produced. The exact 
development of these has not been traced, but it is probable that 
the few fruits which reach maturity are derived from those female 
flowers in which the stamens have completely aborted. The condition 
of the hermaphrodite, intermediate between those of the diclinous, 
