556 FICUS FONTANESIA 



the province of this book. Except in the mild parts of the south and 

 west, where its fruits ripen in the open air, it needs more or less the 

 protection of glass, or at least of a south wall. In the open at Kew the 

 iig gets to be a shrub 6 to 10 ft. high, according to the mildness or other- 

 wise of successive winters. The severest frosts cut it to the ground, 

 whence strong young shoots spring up the following summer. Only once 

 or twice in twenty years has it borne palatable fruit. On the whole, 

 unless wall protection can be given, the fig is not worth growing in our 

 average climate except for its interest and associations. 



The plants cultivated in gardens are exclusively females, which have 

 the power, like the cucumber, to develop fruit without being fertilised. 

 The fertilisation of the wild fig, through the agency of two generations 

 yearly of an insect (Blastophaga), is one of the most remarkable instances 

 known of the interrelation of insect and plant life for their mutual benefit. 

 The cultivated fig in the south of Europe is fertilised through the 

 agency of the same insect, but the pollen is taken from a (functionally) 

 male form of the fig known as the Caprifig. (See Gardeners' Chronicle^ 

 Oct. 14, 1911, p. 267.) 



FITZROYA PATAGONICA, Hooker fil PATAGONIAN CYPRESS. 



CONIFERS. 



(Bot. Mag., t. 4616.) 



A unisexual evergreen tree, described as from 50 to 80 ft. high in a 

 wild state, forming in cultivation in this country a widely pyramidal small 

 tree of dense habit, the terminal portions of the branches slender and 

 pendulous. Leaves linear or slightly obovate, \ to \ in. long, arranged 

 in pairs or in whorlj of threes, often thickened and keeled beneath; 

 sometimes rounded, sometimes tapered to a bluntish apex, spreading, 

 dark green, with two bands of stomata on both surfaces. Cones globose, 

 \ in. wide, with few scales. 



Native of the mountains of W. Patagonia and S. Chile ; discovered in 

 1834 by Capt. Fitzroy, commander of the "Beagle"; introduced for 

 Messrs Veitch by W. Lobb in 1849. It is an interesting and elegant 

 small tree or shrub, but is only at home in the mildest parts of our 

 islands, such as Fota, near Cork, Pencarrow in Cornwall, in the west of 

 Scotland, etc. At Kew it has lived outside in a very sheltered spot for 

 ten or twelve years, but it is doubtful if it could survive a winter like 

 that of 1894-5. In young plants the leaves are larger, flatter, and more 

 spreading than in adult ones. Female trees bear cones freely, in even a 

 small state, but they are usually infertile. 



A second species, F. ARCHERI, Bentham (Diselma Archeri, Hooker fil^ 

 is found in Tasmania, but it is more tender than the South American 

 species. 



FONTANESIA. OLEACE.E 



A genus named in honour of R. L. Desfontaines, a French savant 

 born in 1750, in Brittany; died in Paris, 1833. It is composed of two 



