these persons equally understood the Sexual Relationship of the Fig,* and hkewise in the 



* Theophrastus, ia bis Second Book " De Causis Plantarum," has Chapter XIT. " De Caprificatione et culicibus," where this peculiar 

 process, known by the name of Caprification, is given. 



Heroditus, whom Cicero calls the father of history, mentions distinctly the caprification of the /g". Herod, K>.e;w. 



Pliny also accurately describes the same process under the title " De Oiprificatione" " On Caprification r Plinii Hist. Nat. 

 Lib. Xn. Cap. TY. 



Plutarch, and other authors of antiquity, relate the same circumstances as are practised at this day in the Archipelago and in Italy. But 

 the best account we have of this curious practice is from Tournefort, in a Memoir read before the Academy of Science at Paris in 1705, the 

 substance of which is as follows. 



" Of the thirty species or varieties of the domestic ^g--^ree, which are cultivated in France, Spain, and Italy, there are but two culti- 

 vated in the Archipelago. The first species is called ornos, from the old Greek erinos, which answers to caprifcus in Latin, and signifies a 

 wild fig-tree. The second is the domestic or garden fig-tree. The former bears successively, in the same year, three sorts of fruit, called 

 fornites, cratitires, and orni ; which, though not good to eat, are found absolutely necessary towards ripening those of the garden-fig. 

 These fruits have a sleek even skin; are of a deep green colour; and contain in their dry and mealy inside several male and female flowers 

 placed upon distinct foot-stalks, the former above the latter. The fornites appear in August, and continue to November without ripening : 

 in these are bred small worms, which turn to a sort of gnats nowhere to be seen but about these trees. In October and November, these 

 gnats of themselves make a puncture into the second fruit, which is called cratitires. These do not shew themselves till towards the end of 

 September, The fornites gradually fall away after the gnats are gone ; the cratitires, on the contrary, remain on the tree till May, and in- 

 close the eggs deposited by the gnats when they pricked them. In May, the third sort of fruit, called orni, begins to be produced by the 

 wild fig-trees. This is much bigger than the other two; and when it grows to a certain size, and its bud begins to open, it is pricked in 

 that part by the gnats of the cratitires, which are strong enough to go from one fruit to another to deposit their eggs. It sometimes happens 

 that the gnats of the cratitires are slow to come forth in ceitain parts, while the orni in those very parts are disposed to receive them. In 

 this case, the husbandman is obliged to look for the cratitires in another part, and fix them at the ends of the branches of those fig-trees 

 whose orni are in a fit disposition to be pricked by the gnats. If they miss the opportunity, the orni fiill, and the gnats of the cratitires fly 

 away. None but those that are well acquainted with the culture know the critical moment of doing this ; and in order to know it, their 

 eye is perpetually fixed on the bud of the fig; for that part not only indicates the time that the prickers are to issue forth, but also when 

 tlie fig is to be successfully pricked: if the bud is too hard and compact, the gnat cannot lay its eggs; and the fig drops when the bud is 

 too open. 



" The use of all these three sorts of fruit is to ripen the fruit of the garden fig-tree, in the following manner. During the months of 

 June and July, the peasants take the orni, at the tim.e their gnats are ready to break out, and carry them to the garden fig-trees : if they do 

 not nick the moment, the orni fall ; and the fruit of the domestic fig-tree, not ripening, will in a very little time drop in like manner. The 

 peasants are so well acquainted with these precious moments, that, every morning, in making their inspection, they only transfer to their 

 garden fig-trees such orni as are well conditioned, otherwise they lose their crop. In this case, however, they have one remedy, though an 

 indifferent one ; which is, to strew over the garden fig-trees another plant in whose fruit there is also a species of gnats which answer the 

 purpose in some measure." 



Linnccus thus explains the rationale of this practice. "The caprifcus, or wild fig, is the male plant, and the cultivated fig the female. 

 The flowers are disposed within the cavity of the receptacle, which is so close shut, that often it will scarce admit the end of a common 

 needle through the pore in its extremity. Now the fig-flies, which are of the ichneumon kind, being transformed, and furnished with 

 wings, about the time the farina of the male fig is ripe, make their escape from those male figs, and being wholly covered with their dust, 

 after copulation, they seek for a place to lay their eggs, and flying to every one of the female figs, they enter their cavities, which are filled 

 with pistilla from all sides, by which means they must necessarily brush ofl'that farina, or male dust, with which they were covered, and 

 thus the seeds are impregnated." It is true, the female fig can ripen its fruit, though the seeds are not impregnated, because this fruit is not 

 a pericarpium, or seed vessel, but only a receptacle : so also the hop, mulberry, strawberry, and blite, can produce fruit, even though 

 their seeds do not ripen, because their fruit is nothing but a receptacle or calyx. Some botanists who were ignorant of this, seeing those 

 trees produce fruit without previous impregnation, thought they had found an unanswerable argument against the generation of plants; but 

 they did not consider, that the fruit of the fig is not a seed vessel, but a common receptacle. Yet it appears, that the fruit of the fig, if the 

 seeds are impregnated, grow to a much larger size than those which are not ; which Tournefort also observed; for he tells us, that a fig-tree, 

 in Franche Compte, where there is no caprification, produced every year only 25 pounds w^eight of figs; but that another of the same size in 

 one of the islands of the Archipelago, produced yearly 280 pounds weight of figs, which is above ten times the quantity of the other. This 

 age hath clearly refuted the opinion of Camerarius, who maintained that the seeds of figs never produced any plants. For Linn.t.us tells 

 us, that fig trees are raised every year in Holland from the seeds, provided the fruit is brought from Italy. But if the fruit grew in France, 

 England, Germany, or Sweden, where there are no wild figs, the seeds produce nothing; on the other hand, if those seeds are sown, which 

 grew in Italy or the Greek islands, where the male fig abounds, the plants spring up with ease, putting forth leaves, which at first are like 

 those of the mallow. The same experiment was tried with good success in the Upsal garden in the year l ;44." 



Yet still it would be a difiiculty for us to imagine, that such refined knowledge was in the breasts of the ancients. 

 Tournefort, in explanation of this practice, says, " The prickers contribute to the maturity of the fruit of the garden fig-tree by causing 

 them to extravasate the nutritious juices, the vessels inclosing w^hich they tear asunder, or perhaps too, when depositing their eggs, they 

 leave some sort of ferment, which gently agitates the milk of the fig." 



This is also nearly the explanation of Theophrastus, to whom a knowledge of the sexes of plants is attributed, in his chapter " De Ca- 

 prificatione," on Caprification. " Cum autem morsu crebro culices ora ficuum aperuerint, humorem absumunt supervacuum, et aditum li- 

 berum auris prjebent, et omni poma spirantia efficiunt." 



" By the numerous piercings of the flies, outlets are made in the figs, by which the superfluous moisture is drained, a free passage to the 

 air afforded, and breathing pores effected." Theoph. B. II. C. XII. 



Like some of our modern gardeners, w^ho are in the habit of applying the male flowers to the female in the cucumber plant raised under 

 glasses, in order to ensure a produce; so the ancients performed the like operation on their palms, pistachias, and figs, and in the same way, 

 but without knowing, or even thinking, of the sexes in plants at the time. 



b PiSTACIA, 



