158 Select Plants for Industrial Culture 



effected in the sun. For remarks on this and other points concerning 

 the Fig, the valuable tract published by the Rev. Dr. Bleasdale 

 should be consulted. 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. For some further information, see among other 

 publications also that of the Hon. the Commissioner of Agriculture, 

 Washington, 1878. 



Ficus COlumnaris, Moore and Mueller. 



The Banyan-tree of Lord Howe's Island, therefore extra-tropical. 

 One of the most magnificent productions in the whole empire of 

 plants. Mr. Fitzgerald, a visitor to the island, remarks that the 

 pendulous aerial 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 evident, 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 rather rapidly formed, but the 

 wood never attains the thickness of F. macrophylla, which produces 

 only a single trunk. The allied F. rubiginosa of continental East- 

 Australia has great buttresses, but only now and then a pendulous 

 root, approaching in similarity the stems of Ficus columnaris. The 

 Lord Howe's Island Fig-tree is more like F. macrophylla than F. 

 rubiginosa, but F. columnaris is more rufous in foliage than either. 

 In humid, warm, sheltered tracts this grand vegetable living struc- 

 ture 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 material, requires yet to be tested. A substance 

 almost identical with gutta-percha, but not like india-rubber, has been 

 obtained by exsiccation of the sap 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 appa- 

 rently by its greater solubility in cold, alcohol, and by the portion in- 

 soluble in alcohol being of a pulverulent instead of a viscid character. 

 The mode of exsiccation affects much the properties of the product. 



Ficus Cunning'h.anii, Miquel. 



Queensland, in the eastern dense forest-regions to about 28 S. 

 Mr. J. O'Shanesy designates this as a tree of sometimes monstrous 

 growth, the large spreading branches sending down roots, which take 

 firm hold of the ground. One tree measured was 38 feet in circum- 

 ference at 2 feet from the ground, the roots forming wall-like abut- 

 ments, some of which extended 20 feet from the tree. Several persons 

 could conceal themselves in the large crevices of the trunk, while the 

 main-branches stretched across a space of about 100 feet. A kind 

 of caoutchouc can be obtained from this tree. A still more gigantic 

 Fig-tree of Queensland is F. colossea, F. v. M., but it may not be 



