48 NUTRITIVE PLANTS. 



appears a spot before the fruit is ripe ; the fruit in this place is af- 

 fected with a gangrene, which extends on every side, and frequently 

 occupies a finger's breadth* It withers: the place affected becomes 

 black ; the fleshy substance in the middle of the calyx, for the 

 breadth of a quilf, is corroded : and the male blossoms, which are 

 nearest to the bare side, appear naked, opening a way for the m* 

 sect, which makes several furrows in the inside of the fruit, but 

 never touches the stigmata, though it frequently eats the germen. 

 The wounded or gangrenous part is at first covered or shut up by 

 the blossoms; but, the whole is, by degrees, opened and enlarged of 

 various sizes in the different fruits j the margin and sides being all 

 .gangrenous, black, hard, and turned inwardly. The same gangre- 

 nous appearance is also found near the squamae, after the insect has 

 made a hole in that place. The tree is very common i the plains 

 and fields of Lower Egypt. It buds in the end of March, and the 

 fruit ripens in the beginning of June. It is wounded or cut by the 

 inhabitants at the time it buds ; for without this precaution they 

 say it would not bear fruit. 



3. Common Fig-Tree* 



Ficus Carica. 



This rises with a long stem branching 15 or 20 feet high, with 

 large palmated or hand-shaped leaves. Of this there a number 

 of varieties; as the common fig, a large oblong, dark purplish* 

 biue fruit, which ripens in August either on standards or wails, and 

 the tree carries a great quantity of fruit. The brown or chesnut 

 tig ; a large globular, chesnut-coloured fruit, having a purplish de- 

 licious pulp, ripening in July and August. The black Ischia fig; 

 a middle sized, shortish, flat-crowned, blackish fruit, having a 

 bright pulp, ripening in the middle of August. The green 

 Ischia fig ; a large, oblong, globular-headed, greenish fruit, slightly 

 stained by the pulp to a reddish brown colour, ripens in the end of 

 August. The brown Ischia fig ; a small, pyramidal, brownish-yel- 

 low fruit, having a purplish very rich pulp, ripening in August and 

 September. The Malta fig ; a small flat-topped brown fruit, ripen- 

 ing in the middle of August or beginning of September. The 

 round brown Naples fig; a globular, middle-sized, light-brown 



