20 The JPloH'erhiff of the F'ig. 



The Flowering of tlie Fig. 



TO the uneducated eye the fig is a wonder. The fruit seems to come out in the 

 place where the flowers ought to be ; and the appearance is that there are no 

 flowers before the fruit, as there is in other plants. It was the habit in past ages to 

 attribute something miraculous to every appearance out of the ordinary course of 

 nature, and to take the occasion to connect these marvelous appearances with some 

 individual whom they wished the world to venerate and esteem. So this fig tree 

 marvel came to be associated with the flight of Mary into Egypt with the infant 

 Jesus. 



The Spaniards tell us that in her flight she sheltered herself under a fig tree. In 

 recompense for the security afforded, she blessed the tree, and bestowed upon it mar- 

 velous power. It produces two crops a year, and this is one of the blessings then 

 conferred. But in order that the tree might be fertilized — for even in those days 

 it was known that flowers were of two sexes — the tree put forth, by her command, 

 one magnificent white flower of rare beauty. It was pure white and shot forth rays 

 of phosphorescent loveliness. This fructifies the whole tree, and renders any other 

 flower unnecessary. 



This flowering still continues every year on one night only — St. John's night. It 

 opens for a few minutes at midnight, and whoever could see or secure this flower, at 

 the expense of the whole future of fig culture, would possess himself of a charm 

 which would enable him to procure anything he might desire in this world. 



The Virgin Mary, knowing this, caused the fig, for tliis evening of its flowering, to 

 be guarded by all kinds of horrible things. There are snakes, lizards, bloated toads, 

 birds of ill omen, wild beasts and venomous reptiles of every description, so that no 

 one has ever been able to get near enough to see this miraculous and wonderful 

 flower. 



The story is firmly believed in by all those old Latin races, whose chance for life 

 is cast in those regions where the fig-tree dwells ; and has always been a sufiicient 

 reason to them why the fig-tree has never any flower, as they think. 



What a pity it is that the cold hand of science is so ever ready to crush to death 

 all these beautiful stories. It tells us, in spite of these lovely traditions of ages past, 

 that the fig has flowers like unto any other plant, but the flowefs are inside what we 

 call the fruit. All flowers rest on something. 



Take the apple for instance. The lowest are set on small globular productions. 

 The floral parts, the stamens, rise out of the center of the globe; and after they die 

 away this globe swells and becomes the apple which )ve eat. The fig is formed pretty 

 much in the same way. 



The little globe which we see pushing from the axle of the leaf, and which after- 

 wards becomes the fruit, is filled with floral parts, just as we see in the apple ; but 

 these parts never project up the center so as to be seen by vulgar eyes. There is a 

 small orifice at the apex through which the pollen is drawn, and that is all that is 

 known to any one except of the more curious class. 



The curiosity is rewarded, 6n breaking open a young flower, by finding it filled 



