6 Field Museum of Natural History 



To prevent the dropping of fruit of the edible fig 

 before maturity, it is an ancient practice among fig 

 growers to hang branches of the wild fig tree, or 

 strings of ripe Caprifigs, in the trees of the fig orchard. 

 The fig wasps will then enter the young edible figs and 

 bring about pollination with the Caprifig pollen. The 

 true Smyrna fig absolutely requires pollination to ripen 

 its fruit. Fig trees of this variety grown in Califor- 

 nia continued to drop their immature fruit for over 

 twenty years till the wild fig with its fig wasp was 

 introduced and the so-called "caprification" was made 

 possible. In Mediterranean countries Caprifigs for the 

 purpose of caprification are an article of commerce 

 at times bringing a higher price than edible figs. It has 

 often been stated on apparently good botanical author- 

 ity that the practice is of doubtful utility. According 

 to the California zoologist, Eisen, who has done much 

 to clear up this question, the confusion is due to a fail- 

 ure to discriminate between the varieties which require 

 and those which do not require pollination in order to 

 mature their fruit. The latter kind are grown alto- 

 gether in some localities, as in southern France. 



The ancients who observed the fig wasp and well 

 knew that it had something to do with the ripening of 

 the fruit, sought to account for it in accordance with 

 the ideas of their time., e. g., "the wasps suck up the 

 superfluous humors," "they enlarge the eye and per- 

 mit the fertilizing air to enter." 



The German botanist, Solms-Laubach was the first 

 to investigate thoroughly the flowers of the fig and 

 extended his inquiries to some of the numerous species 

 of wild Ficus. Many of these have been studied since 

 and relations have been found to exist between plant 

 host and insect tenant similar to those observed in the 

 cultivated fig. The insects associated with the wild 

 figs are all closely related to the fig wasp of the Capri- 



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