350 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 5 



the weather becomes warm in spring, the wasps develop rapidly and 

 in April are ready to issue. At this time the spring or profichi crop 

 on the same or other capri trees are in a receptive condition. This 

 crop grows in clusters on the old wood at the extreme ends of the 

 branches and, unlike the mamme w^hich is nearly spherical is much 

 larger and usually has a pronounced neck. It is produced in enormous 

 numbers — many times greater than any other crop — a wise provision 

 of nature as it is the one which is most abundantly supplied with pollen 

 and also the one which is exclusively used to pollinate the main Smyrna 

 fig crop. 



The third or summer crop of the capri tree, known as mammoni, 

 unlike the others, pushes from the axils of the leaves on the new wood 

 and matures from September to the middle of November. The only 

 purpose of this crop seems to be to carry the Blastophaga through the 

 late summer and fall months and to produce seed. Dr. L. 0. Howard, 

 Chief of the Bureau of Entomology of the U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture, has doubts as to the existence of three distinct crops of capri- 

 figs and wdth good reason, for at times and in some climates belated 

 mammoni hibernate with the mamme. The chief difference between 

 the two is that the former contains a well defined cluster of staminate 

 flowers, while in the mamme no male flowers have been observed. 

 These hibernating figs are so similar in form and general appearance 

 that without cutting them open it is difficult to tell them apart. They 

 can be found on some capri trees at the present time. Last Saturday 

 the writer in company with Prof. Harper of the University of Cali- 

 fornia found considerable numbers of them on a tree at Niles. When 

 their habits are better known they may prove to be an important 

 source of pollen for the early crops of Smyrna and other breba figs, 

 which for want of pollen often fail to develop. The Blastophaga 

 from these oviposit in the winter crop and thus the cycle of the 

 yearly life of the insect is completed. 



The Fig Flowers. Count Solms-Laubach and Dr. Meyer, the German 

 botanists, Olivier the Frenchman and Casparina, Gallesio and Ponte- 

 dera, the ItaUans and later Dr. Gustav Eisen, author of the leading 

 treatise on the fig in the English language, are all agreed that there 

 are four kinds of flowers in the fig. It may seem presumptuous to 

 take exceptions to this array of distinguished authorities, but it is 

 nevertheless a fact, easily demonstratable with the abundant material 

 now accessible in California, that there are but two kinds of fig flowers, 

 namely pistillate and staminate. These authors enumerate the four 

 kinds as the male and female of the caprifig, the regular female flower 

 of the Smyrna fig and lastly the female flowers of the Adriatic class, 

 which some of them contend have imperfect stigmas and cannot be 



