MORACEAE. 



37 



Ficus. Fig. 

 (Family Moraceae). 



Rather small trees (for our 

 purpose) and deciduous: sap 

 milky. Twigs rather stout, round- 

 ed: pith large, more or less angu- 

 lar, very white, with a thick firm 

 diaphragm at each node. Buds 

 moderate, globose, often collater- 

 ally multiple, with several ex- 

 posed scales, the end-bud large, 

 conical, with a single infolding 

 striate scale. Leaf-scars alternate, 

 2-ranked, rather large, round, 

 somewhat elevated: bundle-traces 

 several, unequal, compound or ag- 

 gregated in a broken ring: stipule- 

 scars encircling the stem. 



Though there is nothing very 

 interesting about the edible fig as 

 ordinarily grown, it is well known 

 that the oriental varieties of this 

 species require fertilization for 

 the development of their fruit through the activities of a 

 minute gall-fly which breeds in a specialized type of gall flow- 

 ers that accompany functionally active staminate and pistil- 

 late flowers in the large fleshy receptacle that we call the 

 fruit. Similar interrelations exist between other figs and 

 gall insects. In tropical regions many species send roots 

 down from the branches, these enlarging into supplementary 

 trunks which sometimes transform a single tree into an in- 

 tricate grove. Others, which start as epiphytes on other trees, 

 send down similar but interlacing roots, of which enormous 

 trunks are formed at length. 

 Glabrous: end-bud green: lateral buds brown. F. Carica. 



