BIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF FIGS. 923 



second crop, which possesses perfect female flowers, does 

 never become pomologically ripe, and can only be botan- 

 ically ripe by pollination. 



The pomological maturity always indicates and implies 

 a long continued cultivation of the fruit by man, and can 

 be applied only to cultivated fruits. Among other fruits, 

 besides the fig, which attain pomological maturity without 

 botanical maturity at the same time, we may mention some 

 varieties of dates, one variety of pomegrenate, the 

 seedless orange, many apples and pears, the common 

 edible banana,, the pepino Solanum of Central and South 

 America, seedless grapes, and a number of other fruits 

 and vegetables in which the seeds are abortive, and have 

 become so, partly through the continued asexual prop- 

 agations of the plant, partly from other causes. Botanical 

 maturity is attained by all fruits which produce perfect 

 seed, and if the fruit is edible, it is also pomologically 

 mature. 



But it must be remembered that the fruits here enumer- 

 ated as attaining pomological maturity only, are all such as 

 have been developed from pollinated flowers. As far as is 

 known, no other fruit than the fig develops without previous 

 pollination. The development of the common edible fig 

 receptacle must, therefore, be considered somewhat in the 

 same light as the maturity and development reached by a 

 tuber, or by the stems of the sugar cane, etc. Pomological 

 maturity merely indicates that the fruit becomes edible, 

 while botanical maturity means that the fruit has developed 

 fertile seeds. 



Seeds in Smyrna Figs. — We have already several times 

 referred to the fact that all edible figs may be divided in 

 two distinct classes or types, one which, when ripe, does 

 not necessarily contain fertile seed, and one which, when 

 ripe, always contains fertile seed, as otherwise it would 



