DR. G. KING ON THE GENUS FICUS. 33 
along with the single stamen there is present in them a pistil 
with completely formed style and ovary. I have, however, 
never found one of these ovaries to form a fruit containing a 
seed, but I have not unfrequently found one to contain an insect 
pupa. 
Neuter flowers are found only in the few species forming the 
section Synecia. They are long-pedicellate and have a 3-leaved 
perianth, without any trace of either anther or pistil. 
Fertile female flowers have a perianth not very different from 
that of the males, but consisting in many cases of more pieces, 
and being more often gamophyllous. In the case where the 
pieces of the perianth are free, the individual pieces are some- 
times rather easily detached, and are very apt to be confounded 
with the bracteoles of the receptacles in species where the latter 
exist. The perianth is usually much smaller than the mature 
achene, and covers the latter very incompletely or not at all. 
In some cases where the perianth is gamophyllous it forms a 
small cup, which surrounds only the base of the ovary or its 
pedicel. It was in some such cases, where the perianth is hya- 
line, that Miquel was led to believe that none existed; and hence 
his statement about the perianth being absent in Covellia. The . 
pistil may be sessile, but it is very often pedicellate; the ovary is 
more or less ovoid or obovoid, with a tendency to be emarginate 
-on the side at which the style is attached; it contains a single 
pendulous ovule. The style is filiform, and is in most cases 
distinctly lateral or subterminal ; it rarely springs from the apex 
of the ovary. In length the style usually greatly exceeds the 
ovary; it is usually smooth, but in a few species it is hairy. 
The stigma, which is papillose, varies in shape, being cylindric, 
clavate, capitate, peltate, or infundibuliform ; and in a few cases 
it is flat. In many species it is obliquely truncate, and in not a 
few bicrural. It is, however, often very difficult to determine the 
exact form of the stigma, from the fact that at an early stage the 
stigmas of all the fertile female flowers of the same receptacle are 
joined together in a dense felted mass, from which it is nearly 
impossible to detach any individual in a state of entirety. After 
fertilization the ovary becomes developed into an achene, which 
tends to be unilaterally emarginate (many achenes are very 
distinctly reniform), and the style becomes more lateral, or even 
basal The ripe achene has a crustaceous pericarp of a pale 
yellow colour and with a more or less minutely tuberculate or 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XXIV. D 
