28 DR. G. KING ON THE GENUS FICUS. 
arrangement on the receptacles, the species being founded purely 
on external characters. The remarks of Linneus himself on the 
common eatable Fig in the * Hortus Cliffortianus’ (published in 
1737, the same year as the first edition of his ‘ Genera Plantarum ’) 
show that he had a clearer comprehension of the actual arrange- 
ments of tbe sexes than most of the writers who succeeded him. 
In the * Hortus Cliffortianus’ Linneus reduces to the same spe- 
cies the Fig, the Caprifig, and Erinosyce—regarding the Caprifig 
as the male, the Fig as the female, and Erinosyce as the herma- 
phrodite form of one and the same species. In the first edition 
of the ‘Species Plantarum,’ Linneus put the genus Ficus in his 
class Cryptogamia ; but in the second edition he transferred it to 
Polygamia Polyecia, thus confirming the view as to the nature of 
the arrangements of the flowers of the common Fig which he had 
expressed in the * Hortus Cliffortianus.’ In the second volume of 
his * Enumeratio ’ (1806), Vahl puts Ficus into Triandria Mono- 
gynia, thus showing that he not only completely misunderstood 
the sexual arrangements, but that he could never have even 
counted the stamens. In Sprengel’s edition of Linnsus just 
quoted, Ficus is put into a section of Monecia called Andro- 
gynia, from the supposition that flowers of each sex are found in 
each receptacle. The character of the genus given by Blume in 
his *Bijdragen' shows that he must have adopted Vahl's defi- 
nition without examination of the flowers; for, according to 
Blume, as to Vahl, the male flowers of the genus are triandrous. 
Blume mentions that the males have a rudimentary pistil, which, 
as a matter of fact, is the case in only a small number of species. 
Roxburgh is tlie first writer who attempts to describe the flowers 
of each species; and in a note attached to his definition of the 
genus in his ‘ Flora Indica’ he says :—'* I have examined minutely 
the florets of nearly the whole of the species, and found only two 
instances in which they were not androgynous, and by far the 
greater part are monandrous.” He therefore puts Ficus into 
Monecia Monandria. Gasparrini and Miquel were the next 
botanists who appear to have made a careful study of the flowers 
ofthegenus. In the year 1844 Gasparrini published a remark- 
able paper, in which he divided all the species of Ficus known to 
him into eight genera, viz. Ficus proper, Caprificus, Tenorea (à 
name subsequently changed by himself to Macrophthalma), Uro- 
stigma, Visiania, Cystogyne, Galoglychia, and Covellia. His first 
genus, Picus proper, contained only one species, namely the 
