tERtlLISATION OF THE FIG, 235 



All the plants examined by us from Australia were pistil- 

 late only. The researches of Count Solms Lauhaeh, Director 

 of the Botanical Gardens of Strasburg, and Brigade- 

 Surgeon Dr. King, Director of the Botanical Gardens of 

 Calcutta, have cleared up within the last few years all doubts 

 about the functions of the staminate, pistillate, and neuter 

 flowers in the cultivated fig Ficus carica, so that we now 

 know why only the caprification fig is fit for a deposition of 

 the ova of Blastophaga grossorum, or, as it was formerly 

 called, Cynips jjsenes. Much valuable information on this 

 subject may be obtained also from Gustav Mayer's work on 

 insects inhabiting various species of Ficus. 



The Chairman has placed himself in communication with 

 Professor Hillgard, of the Rural Experimental Station of 

 Berkely, California, and with Captain Ellwood Cooper, the 

 most enterprising of all fruit-growlers, and President of the 

 Californian State Board of Horticulture, Santa Barbara, to 

 elicit information about the movement set going in reference 

 to the caprification in California, so that in Australia we 

 might be early benefited from these experiments and any 

 results arising from them. 



