( 2 )
two-thirds their full size, it is only slightly developed.1 D u r i n g t h e g r e a t e r p a r t
of the time that its vegetative functions are most active, and while it is increasing
in size, all the materials absorbed by the plant go to form new tissues. When it
has nearly reached its full size, the excess material taken up by the plant, not
being required to form new tissues, is used up, when it grows in temperate
countries like Europe, in strengthening the tissues already formed. The result is
the thickening of the walls of the cells of those tissues that, when the plant is
ripe, are retted out to form hemp-fibre.
At the corresponding stage in the life of the plant as it grows in a tropical
country like the plains of India, the excess of material absorbed over new tissues
formed, in place of being used up in thickening and strengthening existing
tissues, is stored up in the shape of the resinous substance under discussion, to
be made use of at a subsequent period in the formation of the new tissues of the
fruit and seed. This reserve substance is probably retained in a state of solution,
for it is diffused pretty generally throughout the tissues of the plant. In the
case of male plants, so long as the leaves remain green and vigorous the substance
remains thus diffused ; as the leaves fade and the plant withers it disappears. In
the female plant, the tissues of which are more fully charged with resinous
matter than those of the male, as soon as the flowers are fertilised and the leaves
begin to wither, the substance passes upwards to the flower-heads, gorging the
tissues to such an extent, that it even fills certain small hairs that clothe the sur-
face of the special leaves, called bracts, which cover the individual flowers, and
of those that are situated at the bases of the small spikes on which the flowers are.
To a less but still perceptible extent it also fills the corresponding hairs on the
leaves in the neighbourhood of the flower-heads. By the time the fruits are ripe
the whole of this substance becomes absorbed. If, however, the plant be prevented
from setting its seeds, the. substance is not absorbed but remains as a sticky
exudation on the surface of the parts composing the flower-heads, till the plant
withers.
In the case of plants grown in the Himalayas, Tibet and Turkestan the
substance does not remain diffused throughout the tissues. Its formation in
these regions appears to be less necessary for the performance of its vital
functions, consequently it begins early in the season to appear as a tolerably
uniform glandular exudation on the surface of the young leaves and flower-
bracts in female plants. Another consequence of its superfluous nature in
this area is that the female plant, in which it is alone well developed, does not
absorb the whole of the resin while ripening its seeds ; it is not therefore neces-
sary, in order to obtain the resin, to cultivate the plant so as to prevent its seeds
from being set.
The direct evidence of the connection that exists between the formation of
this resinous substance and the development of the seeds is confirmed indirectly
by two collateral facts. In all fields of cultivated gánjá in Bengal, there
may be found a number of plants termed by the cultivators khásiá (emasculated);
the term has reference to the resin-forming property, not to the sex of the plant ;
in these, as in male plants, resin never becomes deposited in the hairs of any
organ. It has been said that these khásiá plants never bear any flowers, 2 and
Babu H. C. Kerr attempts to convey the force of the expression by calling these
p l a n t s ' h e r m a p h r o d i t e ' i n t h e o r d i n a r y a s o p p o s e d t o t h e b o t a n i c a l s e n s e o f t h e
Word. So far is it from being the case that khásiá plants have no flowers, they
flower more copiously than any other plants in the field; they are in reality
female plants which, though to all appearance organically perfect, seem
incapable of setting seeds. In some hundreds of plants of the kind examined,
though the flowers in all possessed ovules that were apparently perfect, no sign of
seed formation was perceived and no trace of resin deposit was met with. The
absence of resin from the flowering tops of these 'barren females' is almost cer-
tainly due to their functional deficiency and consequent inability to induce the
stimulus that determines the passage of the resinous substance from the leaves to
the ends of the branches. If functionably defective, there is no impairment of
the vegetative powers of these plants ; as Babu H. C. Kerr remarks, they are
more bushy and look more healthy than the others. 3
1R
u s s e l l i n
A s s a m E x c i s e D e p a r t m e n t R e p o r t ,
1 8 8 2 - 8 3 ,
p .2
2 .
2
H. C. Kerr, Report on Gánjá, p. 8.
3
H . C . K e r r ,
R e p o r t , p .
9 .