312 SEXUALITY OF VEGETABLES. CHAP. VI. 



fruit of the Fig is not, as in most other cases, a peri- 

 carp enveloping the seed, but a common calyx or 

 receptacle enclosing the flowers : this may be readily 

 seen by means of cutting a fig in two in the direction 

 of the longitudinal axis of the fruit, in the centre of 

 which there will be found a cavity lined with a 

 jpultitude of flowers, the male and female blossoms 

 being generally in different Figs and on distinct 

 plants, and the medium of communication between 

 them being only a small aperture at the summit of 

 the receptacle. Hence the access of the substance 

 necessary to impregnation is rendered impracticable 

 jfl the ordinary mode of transmission. But nature 

 is not without a resource even in this difficulty ; for 

 tfi Greece and Italy, and the islands belonging to 

 them, the native country of Figs, a species of insect 

 of the genus Cynips, which is continually fluttering 

 about from Fig to Fig for the purpose of depositing 

 its eggs in the cavity, carries the substance necessary 

 to impregnation from the male to the female flower. 

 But the substance which it carries is the pollen of 

 the anthers, with which it becomes covered all over 

 in rummaging through a variety of receptacles till it 

 finds one to please it. The pollen then is the sub- 

 stance by which the impregnation of the female 

 flower is effected ; and the whole of the phenomena 

 of the growth and economy of flowers tends to cor- 

 roborate the fact. In Italy and the Levant, where 

 the Fig is much cultivated, the cultivator ensures or 



