FAT6IA FICUS 555 



spines. Leaves palmately lobed and thickly set with slender prickles on the 

 midrib and veins. Flowers produced in late spring closely packed in a short, 

 dense, prickly and woolly panicle, green. Fruit scarlet. With the same 

 specific name, it has, by various authors, been placed in various genera, viz., 

 Echinopanax, Oplopanax, and Panax. 



FENDLERA RUPICOLA, Engelmann. SAXIFRAGACE^. 



(Bot. Mag., t. 7924.) 



A deciduous shrub, 3 to 6 ft. high, of somewhat thin, straggling habit 

 under cultivation, and with ribbed, downy young shoots. Leaves 

 opposite, lanceolate on the sterile branches; J to ij ins. long, J to in. 

 wide; prominently three-nerved, rough with stiff, short bristles above, 

 hairy beneath, almost without stalks. On the flowering twigs the leaves 

 are much smaller, linear, clustered on short twigs. Flowers white or 

 faintly rose-tinted, f to i \ ins. across, usually solitary, sometimes in threes, 

 produced during May and June on short twigs springing from the wood 

 of the previous year ; petals four, contracted at the base into a distinct 

 claw, hairy outside; calyx downy, with four narrow, ovate lobes; seed- 

 vessel conical, \ in. long, with the calyx persisting at the base. 



Native of the south-western United States; introduced to Europe 

 about 1879. This shrub one of the most beautiful of its own region 

 is too much of a sun^lover to be seen at its best in our climate. It comes 

 from the sunburnt slopes of the mountainous regions of Texas, Arizona, 

 etc., where it is a sturdy, rigid-branched shrub, and produces a great 

 wealth of rosy-tinted flowers, which are said to give it the appearance of 

 a peach-tree, although the four petals and opposite leaves, of course, 

 proclaim a different affinity. I have seen it very fine in continental 

 gardens. In Britain it needs the sunniest position that can be given it 

 against a wall. Mr E. A. Bowles, of Waltham Cross, is very successful 

 with it. Propagated by cuttings of rather soft wood in gentle heat 



FICUS CARICA, Linnaeus. FIG. URTICACE^E. 



A deciduous tree, forming in the south of Europe and in the East 

 a short, rugged trunk, 2 to 3 ft. in diameter, and a low, spreading head 

 of branches ; in Britain it is mostly a shrub. Leaves alternate, three- 

 or five-lobed, 4 to 8 ins. or even more in length and width ; heart-shaped 

 at the base, varying much in the depth of the lobes, which themselves 

 are blunt or rounded at the end, and usually scalloped into broad 

 rounded teeth ; both surfaces, but especially the upper one, rough to the 

 touch, with short stiff hairs ; stalk i to 2 ins. long. Flowers produced 

 on the inner surface of a roundish, pear-shaped receptacle, nearly closed 

 at the top, which afterwards develops into the succulent sweet fruit we 

 know as the fig. 



Native of W. Asia and the eastern Mediterranean region, cultivated 

 in the south and west of Europe, even in Britain, from early times. The 

 cultivation of the fig in this country for its fruits does not come within 



