156 
A NOTE ON THE INFLORESCENCE AN1) 
The origin of complete female flowers on the male spikes needs further 
investigation. In a collection of material of G. Gnemon sent from Ceylon by 
the late Dr R. H. Lock there are many male spikes from which some or 
all the male flowers have fallen. In these spikes a proportion of the female 
flowers are almost invariably complete — i.e. they possess the middle envelope 
which is absent from the incomplete flower. Only one of them has been 
proved to be pollinated 1 , but there is no reason to doubt that they are 
functionally as well as structurally complete. There has been much difference 
of statement as to the order in which the three envelopes of the female 
flower appear 2 . According to the latest pronouncement 3 , the middle envelope 
normally arises after the inner one, though it is not clear whether this state- 
ment is founded upon direct observation or is merely an interpretation of the 
results of earlier authors. If however it is correct, it is not impossible that, 
as the male inflorescence loses its male flowers, some of the incomplete 
female flowers become complete by the formation of the hitherto missing 
envelope 4 . If so the inflorescence may be an example of the dichogamous 
separation of the sexes. It should however be noted that in its later female 
condition, such an inflorescence would still differ from the normal female by 
the presence of vascular traces indicating the former presence of male 
flowers 5 (Fig. 4). 
Nothing is definitely known as to the function of the incomplete female 
flowers. Karsten 6 suggests that they are concerned in pollination but the 
evidence is incomplete. While this is quite possible in the case of G. Gnemon 
and many other species in which these flowers are by comparison large and 
conspicuous, it is highly improbable in G. sccindens in which they are very 
small (Fig. 5). A considerable amount of material of this species has been 
examined but no case has been seen in which the incomplete female flower is 
visible at the surface 7 of the inflorescence. So far as is known it never 
advances beyond the stage figured and no trace of an embryo sac has been 
seen in it. As is pointed out above, the upper nodes of the inflorescence in 
this species usually bear male flowers only. 
1 Pearson, 1915. 2 Lotsy, 1899, pp. 63, 64. 
3 Coulter and Chamberlain, 1910, p. 376. 
4 Cf. Strasburger, 1872, p. 102. Karsten (1893, p. 347) and Lotsy (1899, p. 88) state that a 
rudimentary median envelope is present in the incomplete female flower. Their observations are 
not confirmed by Mrs Thoday (1911, p. 1123). 
5 A male inflorescence of G. Gnemon which has lost all its male flowers is also easily dis- 
tinguished from the normal female inflorescence by the very dense growth of hairs below the 
remaining ring of female flowers. In Lotsy’s figures 2 and 3 (1899) the “yellow dots” which 
represent the “ tips of the paraphysal hairs ” ( l.c . p. 110) cover as wide a band as that occupied 
by the hairs in the old male inflorescence in the Ceylon material referred to. In this material 
the normal female inflorescence never bears so many hairs and in this respect more nearly 
resembles Lotsy’s figures 4, — 6. 
6 j j C ' p. 349. 7 of. also G. funicular e aud G. latifolium (Karsten, l.c. figs. 49, 53). 
