204 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



valuable tract 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, Anda- 

 lusia. For some further information, see among other publications 

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

 1878. Seeds of carefully dried Smyrna tigs are fit to germinate 

 [Macmahon]. Dr. Eisen has published an excellent essay on Fig- 

 culture in California. Figs can also be subjected to fermentation 

 and distillation for alcohol. 



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 singie trunk. He saw one individual tree 

 covering two acres. The allied F. rubiginosa of continental East- 

 Australia has great buttresses, bat 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] . 

 Thus 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, and by the 

 portion insoluble in alcohol being of a pulverulent instead of a 

 viscid character. The mode of exsiccation affects much the proper- 

 ties of the product. The tree also in culture should form a mag- 

 nificent retreat for singing birds and for epiphytal orchids. 



Ficus Cunning! ami, 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 

 circumference at 2 feet from the ground, the roots forming wall- 



