Originally Posted by Gabe15

Yes, that is basically correct.



In the context of the photos above, you must look at the flowers directly above the male bud. The ones in the third photo of 'Williams' right after the last fruits are not really the male flowers, they are transitional and are often persistent on any cultivar.

If you take a look at the first photo, it clearly has totally persistent flowers all along the rachis. In the the second photo, the rachis is mostly clean, but right above the bud, there are dried persistent bracts and flowers, they have obviously been falling off, but they are still semi-persistent. Sometimes environmental conditions can change the degree to which the flower and bract persistence is expressed.