«J02 THE FIG-TBEE FAMILY. 



ganium, and hanging together, when ripe, in twos and threes, form an 

 excellent and ready distinctive character. The bark peels of in shreds 

 during spring and early summer. There is a tolerably good specimen 

 of this noble tree on the left hand side of the road leading from 

 Oxford-road to Victoria Park, opposite Moss Lane end, standing between 

 a Spanish chesnut and an elm. Others occur in private grounds in 

 the same neighbourhood, the two best standing upon the lawn at 

 "The Oaks" (Mr. Ogden's), but not within view from the road. 

 There is another in the garden at Cheadle Rectory. 



CXX.— THE FIG-TREE FAMILY. MomcecB. 



None of this family are European by birthright, nor are any seen 

 out of doors in England except the mulberry and the common fig. 

 The latter, Ficus Carica,, usually grows eight or ten feet high ; the 

 bark is smooth and gray, and on being wounded, pours out a milky 

 juice of peculiar odour; the leaves are the size of a man's hand, rough, 

 and upon long petioles, with about five great finger-like and rounded 

 lobes. The flowers are contained in the young figs, which resemble 

 small green pears, and are in reality concave and fleshy receptacles, 

 nearly closed at the top, and bearing on their inner surface a vast 

 number of minute and incomplete flowers, which of course are only 

 seen by cutting the fig in half. This valuable and interesting tree is 

 not uncommon in good gardens about Bowdon, Lymm, Withenshaw, 

 and elsewhere south of Manchester. It is generally trained against 

 walls, and in favourable seasons ripens fruit. It is also grown in 

 green-houses. 



The mulberry, or Morus niffra, in its full-grown state, is rarer. 

 Young trees occur pretty frequently in arboretums, but few large and 

 old enough to bear fruit except at Sale, Withenshaw, Cheadle, and 

 thereabouts. The finest perhaps are those in the kitchen-garden at 

 Alderley Park. It is a good-sized though rather scrubby-looking tree, 

 with large, heart-shaped, rough, and pointed leaves, the edges serrate, 

 and sometimes varying to thrce-lobcd. The flowers are green and 

 inconspicuous, and the purple fruits like large blackberries. It is one 

 of the very last trees to put forth its leaves, seldom being green over 

 till the middle of June. 



The hot-house species of the Moracca) include the india-rubber tree. 



