234 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



possessed of an ovary, with style and stigma. The ovaries 

 become the yellow grains found so plentifully in the fig 

 when mature. Ripening consists in the conversion of 

 this leathery green bag, milky at first, into one that is soft, 

 succulent, pulpy inside, usually purple or bronze-green 

 upon the outside, and of delicious flavour. The soft 

 portion contains grape-sugar, to the amount of 60 or 70 

 per cent., and this, when the fruit is dried, partially 

 effloresces upon the surface. So far, good. But where 

 are the staminate flowers? The fig is very evidently 

 dioecious; probably to some extent monoecious also. 

 The staminate flowers appear to be contained in the figs 

 which drop off while still small, green, and milky ; and 

 which (or the trees producing them) are in continental 

 countries called " caprifigs." The history of the process 

 of "caprification," the fertilizing of the pistillate flowers, 

 insect-agency having its place, and the general nature 

 of the sexual apparatus of the fig, is far too large a 

 subject to be dealt with in the present chapter. Here it 

 must suffice to say that " caprification " is not necessary, 

 much less indispensable, to the ripening of the fig, and 

 that all figs which grow to be large and eatable are 

 emphatically those containing female flowers wholly or 

 chiefly.* 



The variety in the complexion of the ripe fig is very 

 considerable. So is the flavour, when properly matured. 

 The dried fig of the shops gives no idea of it, especially 



* Vide, for the particulars, the Gardeners' Chronicle for April 28, 

 1883, and subsequent communications from correspondents. 



