260 PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. PART II. 



tice has long prevailed in certain countries of the East 

 with respect to the cultivated fig, of a similar description 

 to that which is employed to fertilize the date, and 

 although the results are very different in the two cases, 

 it is only lately that this fact has been suspected. 

 Both phenomena were always considered of the same 

 class ; and an erroneous theory was formerly founded on 

 the mistake. Bunches of the flowers of the wild fig 

 are brought from the woods and suspended over the 

 cultivated plants, when a small insect (the larva of a 

 cynips) imported with the wild flowers punctures tin- 

 young fruit of the cultivated individuals, and accelerates 

 their ripening in the same way that we find a similar 

 effect produced in some apples and pears by the punc- 

 ture of the caterpillar of a small moth, which causes them 

 to ripen before the rest, and to fall sooner from the 

 tree. In consequence of the earlier ripening of the 

 figs occasioned by the practice alluded to, and which is 

 styled the caprification of their fruit, a second crop is 

 secured which might otherwise have failed, from being 

 produced too late in the season to allow of its attaining 

 perfection. It was in attempting to generalise from the 

 facts observed in the caprification of the young fig, that 

 the ancients asserted that a maggot (t^v) was the effi- 

 cient cause of fertility in the date, and that this insect 

 crept from the sterile into the fertile blossoms before 

 the development of the fruit could take place. 



The existence of a sexual distinction between indi- 

 vidual trees in such species as the date and some other 

 dioecious plants, gave rise to another erroneous opinion, 

 and it was supposed that even plants where the stamens 

 and pistils were contained in the same flower were 

 nevertheless unisexual. Thus Claudian asserts 



" Vivunt in venerem frondes, arborque vichsim 

 Felix arbor amat ; nutant ad mutua palma 1 

 Fu'dcra |iopuleo suspirat populus ictu : 

 El platani plalanis, alnoque assibilat alnus. " 



(257-) Vegetable Sexes. A more careful research 

 and the results of direct experiment have superseded 



