PART III. | THE MECHANISMS OF FLOWERS. 521 
Urtica wrens, L., owes it great abundance to the early period of 
the year at which it flowers, its regular cross-fertilisation, and the 
quick ripening of its fruit (590, 597). 
Tribe Artocarpee. 
377. Ficus Carica, L.—The latest researches confirm the fact, 
which Linneus (416A) was aware of, that the so-called Caprificus, 
which bears inedible fruit, and the fig-tree, cultivated for the sake 
of its fruit from time immemorial, stand in the relation of male and 
female to one another. Fertilisation is effected by a wasp, Blasto- 
phaga grossorum, Grav. (Cynips Psenes, L., Chalcidide). The hollow 
inflorescence which we call a fig is very markedly proterogynous 
in both the fig-tree and the Caprificus. The greater part of its 
inner wall is covered with female flowers, which are mature when 
the “eye” (ostiolwm) of the young fig opens. Male flowers line 
a limited zone near the orifice, and are not mature until the fig 
is ripe. The Caprificus produces three crops of figs annually, one 
crop beginning to flower as the previous one is ripe. Many 
varieties of the fig-tree ripen two crops, some three, annually, 
In most cases each crop of figs, whether of the fig-tree or the 
Caprificus, brings only flowers of one sex to full maturity. 
At Naples, the Caprificus ripens its three crops of inedible figs 
in April, June, and August. The first crop are called mamme, 
the second profichi, and the third mammoni. Each of these hatches 
a new generation of fig-wasps, but it is only the second which 
produces the pollen with which the fig-tree is cross-fertilised. Each 
crop produces female flowers in which the wasps undergo their 
development, but male flowers are usually quite wanting in the 
mamme, few in number in the mammoni, and only plentiful in the 
proficit. The fig-tree also produces three crops in the season, 
called fiort di fico, pedagnuolt, and cimarwolt. 
The reproduction of the fig-wasp takes place in the following 
way. The female wasps force their way with the loss of their 
wings into young figs of the Caprificus, through the narrow 
ostiolum. They lay their eggs in the ovaries of the female flowers, 
between the nucleus and the integuments, placing one egg only 
in each. The wasp dies within the fig to which it has intrusted 
its offspring. In consequence of the puncture which the wasp has 
made, the female flower enlarges after the manner of a gall, and 
in its ovary instead of its own embryo, the wasp-embryo develops. 
While the figs themselves are proterogynous, the wasps on the 
other hand are proterandrous. The wingless males are the first to 
