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 noJ-IQ 



Field Museum of Natural History 



DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY 

 Chicago. 1922 



Leaflet Number 1 



Fig: 



"The wild figs upon the fig trees contain a creature 

 called psen : this is at first a little worm, and afterwards 

 having ruptured the case the psen flies out. and leaves it 

 behind. It then pierces the unripe figs, and causes them 

 not to fall off. wherefore gardeners place wild fruit near 

 rhe cultivated kinds, and plant the wild and cultivated 

 plants near each other." — Arisrotle. History of Animals. 

 B. V.. Ch. XXVI 3. 



Botanically the figs are a subdivision of the mul- 

 berry family. They are peculiar in not having their 

 flowers exposed, like most flowering plants, but con- 

 cealed within a hollow, urn-shaped receptacle which 

 has precisely the appearance of a young fruit. The 

 apparent absence of flowers is often a matter for com- 

 ment. An old Chinese writer on Materia Medica and 

 Natural History in discussing the fig calls it the "fruit 

 without flower." In reality the flowers are numerous 

 but insignificant in size and in appearance. All other 

 members of the family to which the figs belong have, 

 like the mulberry, the flowers and the individual fruits 

 on the outside. 



Some 600 species of wild figs have been described 

 to date. A few of them are cultivated or well-known 

 plants, such as the rubber plant which in its normal 

 habitat is a rubber yielding tree, the Banyan tree which 

 with its numerous proproots may spread over an acre 

 or more of ground, and the sycamore fig that furnished 

 the everlasting wood for the coffins of the Pharaohs. 

 The vast majority of figs, however, grow in semi-tropi- 

 cal and tropical forests and jungles as shrubs, trees, or 



