IN EXTRA-TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 129 



which yields but one. The former includes the Grey or Purple 

 Fig, which is the best, the White Fig and the Golden Fig, the 

 latter being the finest in appearance but not in quality. The 

 main variety, which bears only one crop a year, supplies the 

 greatest quantity of figs for drying, among which the 

 Marseillaise and Bellonne are considered the best. The Barni- 

 sote and the Aubique produce delicious large fruits, but they 

 must be dried with fire-heat, and are usually consumed fresh. 

 The ordinary drying is effected in the sun. For remarks on 

 this and other points concerning the Fig, the valuable tract 

 recently published by the Rev. Dr. Bleasdale should be con- 

 sulted. The first crop of figs grows on wood of the preceding 

 year; the last crop, however, on wood of the current year. 

 Varieties of particular excellence are known from Genoa, 

 Savoy, Malaga, Andalusia. 



Ficus columnaris, Moore and Mueller. 



The Banyan Tree of Lord Howe's Island, therefore extra-tropi- 

 cal. One of the most magnificent productions in the whole 

 empire of plants. Mr. Fitzgerald, a visitor to the island, 

 remarks that the pendulous air-roots, when they touch the 

 ground, gradually swell into columns of the same dimensions 

 as the older ones, which have already become converted into 

 stems, so that it is not apparent which was the parent trunk ; 

 there may be a hundred stems to the tree, on which the huge 

 dome of dark evergreen foliage rests, but these stems are all 

 alike, and thus it is impossible to say whence the tree comes 

 or whither it goes. The aerial roots are comparatively rapidly 

 formed, but the wood never attains the thickness of F. 

 macrophylla, which produces only a single trunk. F. rubiginosa 

 also sends air-roots to the ground to form additional trunks 

 (Dr. G. Bennett). The allied Fig Trees of continental East 

 Australia have great buttresses, but only now and then a pendu- 

 lous root, approaching in similarity the stems of Ficus colum- 

 naris. The Lord Howe's Island Fig Tree is^more like F. 

 macrophylla than F. rubiginosa ; but F. columnaris is more 

 rufous than either. In humid, warm, sheltered tracts, this 

 grand vegetable living structure may be raised as an enormous 

 bower for shade and for scenic ornament. The nature of the 

 sap, whether available for caoutchouc or other industrial mate- 

 rial, requires yet to be tested. A substance almost identical 

 with gutta percha, but not like India-rubber, has been obtained 

 by exsiccation of the sapj of F. columnaris (Fitzgerald) . The 

 hardened sap of this species resembles in many respects that 

 of F. subracemosa and F. variegata, called Getah Lahoe, 

 but differs apparently by its greater solubility in cold alcohol, 



