930 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



partial maturity. The balance all dropped off before 

 even beginning to soften. Microscopic examination of 

 the ripe fruit of these pollinated second crop San Pedro 

 and Gentile showed that a large number, more than one- 

 third (about), of the flowers possessed fertile seed. The 

 effect of pollen had thus been to produce a botanical as 

 well as a horticultural maturity, the latter having been 

 effected by the former. My experiments in pollination 

 have not been repeated, but I think enough has been 

 demonstrated to show that the regular and periodic drop- 

 ping of figs is — in varieties where the whole crop fails to 

 come to maturity — invariably caused b}/" the want of pol- 

 lination of the female flowers. In other words, where 

 perfect female flowers are found in the fig, the)^ must 

 have pollination in order to produce a horticultural matu- 

 rity of receptacle. Where again the flowers in the recep- 

 tacle are imperfect as far as their generative capacity is 

 concerned, then a horticultural maturity vyill ensue, polli- 

 nation and caprification being useless, and impotent to 

 produce any effect. Horticultural maturity will be effected 

 without pollination or caprification. 



Pollination of First Crop San Pedro. — May i6th I 

 pollinated nineteen figs of first crop San Pedro, the figs 

 being of very much the same size as those ready for pol- 

 lination of the second crop. In the middle of June thir- 

 teen of these figs had matured, the others had fallen off. 

 Examination showed that no fertile seeds had been formed, 

 all the ovaries being shrunk and abortive. This was as I 

 expected, as previous microscopic examination of fig 

 flowers of the first crop San Pedro figs had alwa3^s shown 

 the ovaries to be shrunk. Whatever effect pollination 

 may have had on these flowers, if an}^, it certainl}^ could 

 not have effected any fecundation or production of seed. 

 Pollination of the first crop San Pedro is therefore use- 



