18
flowering of male plants the more they approximate to female Cannabis plants in ap-
pearance. The first writer to speak of monœcious conditions in hemp is Nees 1who says
that though Cannabis is a diœcious species, individual plants occur with both male and
female organs in separate flowers. Many other writers refer casually or particularly to
instances of this monœcious condition. Kanitz has recorded such 2 ; Heyer mentions their
occurrence as interesting variations of unknown origin3; Masters includes Cannabis in his
list of diœcious plants in which the presence of flowers of both sexes on one plant is com-
mon,4 without going into any detail. We have, however, more special references by
Spallanzani, 5 Bernhardi,6 B. Clarke,7 Braun8 and Holuby 9 to the presence of male
flowers in plants of female type; besides Autenrieth, 10 Gasparrini11 and Holuby 9 record
the presence of female flowers in plants of male type.
According to Spallanzani,Bernhardi, Autenrieth,and Gasparrini this tendency for plants of
one sex to produce flowers of the opposite sex is often the result of mutilation, or is the effect
of growth under unusual or adverse conditions; Autenrieth indeed explains that the pheno-
menon can be induced by experimental mutilation. The writer's experience is that variations,
though occurring also in the fields, are much more usual among the stunted, uncared for
plants of seed-beds. In plants growing by road-sides or in hedges they are much less
common even than in plants grown in fields.
The most detailed accounts are those of Braun and Holuby. The condition described
by the former is one, Braun says, ' to understand which the reader must imagine all the tips
of the shoots of a male plant cut off and female shoots substituted.' This condition, which is
of considerable interest as being the condition usually reported in the allied genus Humulus
when that plant is abnormally monœcious, has never been met with by the writer in Indian
Cannabis plants. The converse condition, which in India is common, was apparently first
observed by the Danish Missionaries at Tranquebar in 1778. Holuby, who says that
monœcious Cannabis plants are well known in the Slovak provinces of Hungary as Svereka
(wild) or ná rrisches (fatuous) hemp and adds that they play a part in certain superstitious
customs at Slovak weddings, describes the conditions observed by him collectively as
Cannabis sativa var. monoica. But his 'variety' is itself very variable and he has given
four subvariations; a, with unisexual flowers, very variable, now male, now female flowers
predominating—this corresponds to the conditions when male floral branches may occur on
female plants and vice versâ; ß, with conspicuous female flowers in long lax panicles—
corresponding to the Indian Sheória hemp;γ,
compressed-flowered females, with
single horizontal projecting branches below, longer than the quite short pyramidal inflorescence
—a condition that does not quite deserve to be included in any VAR. monoica, though it
indicates the tendency that some female plants have to assume, partially, the male habit; and
ε, a form, only once seen, with male flowers only, but with these united in close inflorescences
as if they were females—this too is technically out of place in VAR. monoica; it is, however,
extremely interesting because it apparently corresponds to the Indian Mória hemp, differing
only in being general, instead of local on the plant. This general condition has never been
1 Beschreibung officineller Pflanzen; disp. 6.
2 Erdélyi Museum, 1874, p. 159.
3 Bericht. Landwirthsch. Inst. Univ. Halle, V, (1883).
4 Vegetable Teratology, p. 194.
5 Dissertazioni di fisica animale e vegetale, ii, p. 279.
6 Cited by Macchiati: Sulla sessualita, etc., della Canapa, p. 4.
7 New Arrangement of Phanerogamous Plants; Introd. p. 4 (1866).
8 Sitzungsber der Gessellsch. Naturforsch. Freunde, Berlin, 19th November 1872 : Bot. Zeitung 1873.
9 Oesterreiches Botanische Zeitschrift, xxviii, p. 367 (1878).
10 De discrimine sexuali, p. 7.
11 Ricerche sulla embriogenia della Canape, p. 23.