The Mango Relatives of Cochin China; -Those with Five-Stamen Flowers
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
250 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1948 which resulted in higher percentage loss could be improved by use of more re from decay, shriveling, and case hard frigeration, both in transportation and in ening. holding fruit in storage to stabilize the The experiments showed that it is pos market at times of overshipment. The sible to extend the storage life and shelf results also show that a much more val life of Persian limes with several kinds of uable consumer type package could be wrapping materials and with refrigera made of any one of several different tion temperature of 45°F. Many of the wrapping materials proven of value in films showed advantages when used in these experiments for preserving better refrigerated temperatures but were not quality of Florida Persian limes than the of value when removed to room tempera window-type package which is generally tures .from refrigeration, whereas others used at the present time and has no were found beneficial under both con moistureproofness. ditions of storage. Not only will further investigations be Refrigeration itself proved to be very made as new wrapping materials become valuable for extending the period of available but will also include different marketability of limes, the results in types of consumer packages as well as dicating that the whole lime industry the over-all carton or container. THE MANGO RELATIVES OF COCHIN CHINA; -THOSE WITH FIVE-STAMEN FLOWERS David Fairchild made my way to the Botanic Garden in Biological Nucleus Saigon where, as though he had been awaiting me, I found Dr. Haffner, one Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada of those delightful French botanists who Plant introduction is a long drawn-out in those days were stationed in * the game in which there are critical mo French Colonies, and were in charge of ments, as I suppose there are in all life. pretty much all the agricultural work I am reminded of this as I attempt to put that was going on in them. We "hit it down here the incidents which have led off" at once, for he was interested in up to the writing of this paper. bringing new crops into the colonies, The Messagerie Maritime boat that I and when he discovered I could speak boarded in Bombay in the spring of 1902 French, he told me how he was in made a call of 24 hours in the port of triguing the Annamites into growing Saigon, capital of the French colony of Javanese peanuts, that were better than Cochin China. Twenty-four hours is a their own, merely by forbidding any pretty short time to explore a country from being taken from his experimental like Cochin China, but I was hurrying plantings. through to Japan to meet my patron, When I asked about mangos, Dr. Haff- Barbour Lathrop. ner said I could find in the market a It was the 16th of April when I got mango which he called the "Cambodi- off the boat in the early morning and ana" which came practically true to seed; FAIRCHILD: MANGO RELATIVES 251 it was planted everywhere and never stamen, with no sign of pistil. It can grafted. There was no time to be lost scarcely escape attention that even if for my boat was sailing the next morn only a few of this great number set fruit, ing, so I drove to the market and bought and if each inflorescence bears but 2 every one of the mangos I could find mature fruits, you would still have a there. I hadn't even time to return and good crop. But I could not help won bid Dr. Haffner adieu, for the job of dering what might be the result if some cleaning the seeds and packing them for plant breeder had at his disposal some shipment took a half dozen "boys" from close relatives of the mango to cross with the hotel and me all the afternoon, and it. I had just time to get aboard the next I remember seeing a Flora of Cochin morning with the box. The seeds were China with carefully drawn plates and well packed and arrived by freight 5 among them some of the mango flowers weeks later in Washington and were en with 5 large, well developed stamens. tered in the S. P. I. Inventory as 8701. As I examined with my hand lens the As I was cleaning the seeds I noticed mango blossoms on all of my 20-odd there was some variation in the fruits, varieties and found always a single, more but that, judging from seedlings I had or less well developed stamen and some seen elsewhere, it seemed to be a "sur staminodia, occasionally almost as large prisingly constant variety." The seeds as the stamen, my mind reverted to those were polyembryonic. drawings and I determined to have an In the strange language of the Anna- other look at them. mites they were known as Xoai Voi. It so happened that this summer I This variety or its seedlings have come stayed in Cambridge quite near the to be known as the Saigon in the mango Gray Herbarium so I walked over to see region of south Florida, and there are if I could find that Flora. various varieties of it known. Many of Hoping to find my old friend Dr. my friends prefer its somewhat acid Fernald there, although he had retired, I flavor to that of the rich Indian mangos, slipped a couple of my best mango fruits such as the Alphonse or the Borsha. in my pocket, thinking they would serve I have often regretted that my stay as an introduction to my subject. As I with Dr. Haffner had been so short, for had half expected, there was the great he had such a fund of information about botanist just where I had seen him sev tropical plants. eral years ago; at his desk, with 2 This spring during the best flowering herbarium sheets before him. He was I have ever had on my mangos, I spent deciding a question of whether two of some time examining the flower-clusters. the American violets were identical or I was tempted to count the amazing not;—measuring carefully each dimen number of flowers which compose a sion of the dried leaves, the flower single inflorescence, but after counting peduncles, etc. about a thousand I decided to estimate As he looked up and recognized me I the number instead. Ten thousand laid on the table before him my two would not be an exaggeration I presume, mangos, without saying what they were. counting the flowers with pistil and He looked at them carefully and then single stamen and those with only the said: 252 FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 1948 "They are not apples, but I never saw Anacardiaceae. As I poured over the them before. What are they?" remarkable plates, drawn by E. Delpy on "Well, Professor" I said, "they are stone half a century ago, a consciousness specimens of a fruit which is eaten by came over me of the tragedy, so to say, more millions of people than is the apple. of my having been in Saigon where rela They are mangos from my trees in tives of the mango were growing, with Florida." out bringing any of them home. They I was not shocked to discover that he should long ago have formed part of the did not know the mango, for his years of equipment of our mango investigations the closest concentration have been spent in south Florida. We have for almost in a critical examination of the thousands 50 years been planting any old seeds we of species of wild plants which compose could get and grafting them with the flora of the Central and North East mangos, imported sorts or seedlings origi ern States and adjacent Canada. He had nating in our yards, without stopping been associated with the late Professor to consider that all of the varieties had B. L. Robinson in the preparation of flowers with only one feebly developed Gray's New Manual of Botany which stamen, and with root systems which was published 40 years ago, and has were rather slow to "take hold" in our been used by perhaps a hundred thou rocky soils and ill-adapted to the muck sand of our American youth; and now soils at our disposal. We had over he is finishing an enlarged new edition. looked the possibilities which may lie in I was once severely criticized by Mr. these Cochin China relatives, possibili Lathrop for not knowing who was the ties that they might cross with our mango golf champion about whom the Wash varieties and give us new hybrids with ington Star was running headlines, so increased vigor and better pollinating how could I expect Fernald to know qualities. Five stamens instead of one, that while he was working on the and a different root system—a better Manual I had been helping to establish stock. a mango industry in southern Florida. We have done just what the citrus "I will try them," he said, and we growers have so generally done, stuck to turned to the subject of my visit; a look one or two stocks, the sour orange or the at the Flora of Cochin China. I thought rough lemon in their case, without ex I remembered just where on the shelf haustively studying the root systems of the volume was which I had seen years the relatives which are scattered over before, but discovered that I could not the globe.