1 



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163 



The flowers of tlie wild fig are used for the caprification of 

 the cultivated fig in various parts of the East. This process was 

 known to the ancients\ 



The cultivated fig bears two sorts of fruit; in the spring early- 



figs or fii 



figs. In the Jii 



male flowers are ver\' rarely found, and the few that may be 

 present cannot serve for fecundation, for they do not appear un- 

 til long after the stigmata of the female flowers are dried and 

 destroyed. *T have never been able/' says Prof Gas])arrini-*' tofind 

 seeds with embryos in the fiorones'' The summer fruit, on the 

 contrary, have no male flowers, and yet near)}^ all of their ovaries 

 become perfect, that is, furnished with embryos. Many kinds 

 of figs, says Brandis"^, have sterile seed, that is, seed in which the 

 embryo has not been developed, and therefore, fecundation is not 

 an essential condition to the ripening of figs. 



Gourd. Lagbnaria vulgaris, Ser. (Cucurritac.e). 



Directions for makinj^ the srourd seedless are sfiven in the 



^ mv. ^wi^.vj ^v-v-^x^-j^ C*.v- ^ 



Geoponics, lib, xii. c. 19, and Ibn-a!-awam, in the twelfth cen- 

 tury, a Moorish-Spaniard, mentions seedless gourds. Since the 

 appearance of the pumpkin and squash, at the discovery of 

 America, the gourd has scarcely been grown in Europe for edible 

 purposes, and hence has been but little under observation. 



Grape. Vitis sp. (VitacE/E). 



The grape is botanically a berry, an indehiscent fruit which is 

 fleshy or pulpy throughout. The seeds nestle in pulp formed 

 from the placentas. The berry is formed from the ovaries alone. 

 All the true grape vines bear fertile flowers on one stock, and 

 sterile flowers on another separate stock, and are, therefore, called 

 polygamous, or not quite correctly, dioecious. The sterile plants 

 bear male flowers with abortive pistils, so that while they 

 never produce fruit themselves, they may assist in fertilizing 

 the others ; the fertile flowers, however, are hermaphrodites, con- 



1 Diosc. lib. I. c. 184 ; Theoph. lib. i. c. 8: Arlst. U. An. lib. v. c. 2G. See 

 also Walpole^s Turkey, xxiii. 241. note. Pliny, lib, xv. c. 19 and lib. xvii. c. 27. 



2 Ann. des Sc. (Ill), t. 5, p. 306. 



3 Forest Flora, p. 419. 



