86 DR. G. KING ON THE GENUS FICUS. 
which are borne by a different set of trees. So different in 
appearance are the two kinds of receptacles in F. Carica, that the 
trees bearing them (although they have similer leaves) have 
almost from time immemorial been considered distinct species, 
known by distinct names—the former being called the Caprifig, 
the latter the Fig. A vague idea of sexual relationship had indeed 
prevailed even from the time of Aristotle, and on this idea was 
founded the practice of caprification. Linnwus indeed, in his 
‘Hortus Cliffortianus, boldly declared that the Caprifig and Fig 
were merely male and female of the same species. Linnzus knew 
that the Caprifig was practically a male, for he says the male 
Fig (Caprifig) is formed of male florets and of female florets, 
and of those the females are sterile; the female (Fig) is composed 
of female florets only. But botanists subsequent to Linneus 
regarded the Caprifig and Fig as distinct species.; this was 
Miquel’s view, even in his latest rearrangement of the genus; 
and Gasparrini, as we have seen, formed Caprificus and Ficus 
each into a monospecific genus. Another favourite opinion has 
also been that the two forms are races of one plant, the Caprifig 
being the wild race and the Fig the race which has been produced 
by cultivation. This was the view which Count Solms-Laubach 
maintained and defended with much skill in a paper published 
so lately as 1882 *. The chief support of this view is really the 
fact that amongst the gall-flowers of the Caprifig there are occa- 
sionally developed perfect female flowers which become fertilized 
and yield seed. Thus Gasparrini states that, by carefully exam- 
ining the contents of forty receptacles of Caprifig, he succeeded 
in obtaining from them twenty achenes with perfect seeds. 
The view which Count Solms-Laubach at first adhered to was 
combated by Fritz Müller, who maintained the opinion of Lin- 
næus that the two are but the male and female plants of one and 
the same species. So impressed was Solms-Laubach by Müller's 
arguments, that he undertook a journey to Java in order to be 
able to examine the fresh receptacles of other species with the 
view of discovering what the disposition of the flowers in these 
might be. The results he found to be confirmatory of Müller's 
theory and contradictory of his own, and, with a magnanimous 
* “Die Herkunft, Domestication und Verbreitung des gewohnlichen Fei- 
genbaums (Ficus Carica, L.).” Von Grafen zu Solms-Laubach. (Aus dem 
achtundzwanzigsten Bande der Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft 
der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, 1882.) 
