The belief prevails that
these observances procure an overwhelming majority of the female
element. The problem of sex, which bewilders the faithless European, is
solved satisfactorily to the Hindoo by a virgin prayerful and pure.
On plants which have hitherto displayed only masculine characteristics,
small, pale yellow, sweetly-scented flowers on long, loosely-branched
axillary panicles, may appear partially or fully developed female organs
which result in fructification, and such fruit is ostentatiously
displayed. The male produces its fruit not as does the female, clinging
closely and compact to the stem, but dangling dangerously from the end
of the panicles--an example of witless paternal pride. This fruit of
monstrous birth does not as a rule develop to average dimensions, and it
is generally woodeny of texture and bitter as to flavour, but fully
developed as to seeds.
The true fruit is round, or oval, or elongated, sometimes pear-shaped,
and with flattened sides, due to mutual lateral pressure. As many as 250
individual fruits have been counted on a single tree at one and the same
time. The heaviest fruit within the ken of the writer weighed 8 lb.
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