Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/478

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THE JOUENAL OF INDIAN BOTANY. Female flowers : — The surface colour of the peduncle is visible here at the inter-spaces left uncovered by the rather thin spreading of these female flowers all over the surface. The colour of the sur- face of the peduncle as well as of the female flowers is dirty brown and so the whole of this portion is brown in appearence. These female flowers consist of only the carpels and there is no perianth. Carpels are flexible and more or less bent ; sfcigma is 3-to 4-lobed. Three lobed stigmas are common. Each lobe is conoid and its surface is warty. The ovary is 3 to 4-cornered.

Ovules:-— 11 the ovary is cut transversely we get 3 to 4 loculi according to the number of stigmatic lobes, which are either 3 or 4. So far as it was seen there was only one ovoid ovule per loculus.

Tendency of the unisexual flowers to become hermaphrodite: — In this specimen of the inflorescence there was one flower in which there was one carpel surrounded by four yellow anthers. And this flower was situated at the junction of the male and female flower bands.

To a distant observer this inflorescence (with! the spathe removed) appears to resemble a large fungus.