932 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



otherwise have been the case. To account for this he 

 assumes that the seed had formed through what by nat- 

 uralists is called "parthenogenesis," or self-development. 

 However, Gasparrini's experiments upon this subject are 

 defective and not at all conclusive. It is much more prob- 

 able that those varieties did contain some perfect female 

 flowers, which had in some way been pollinated. Par- 

 thenogenesis is too rare an occurrence to be accepted 

 without thorough experiments (45). The fact that Cal- 

 ifornia figs, which formerly at least could not possibly 

 have been pollinated, never exhibited fertile seeds, speaks 

 strongly against the parthenogenesis theory of Gaspar- 

 rini and for the belief that even for ordinary figs both 

 pollen and female flowers are required for the production 

 of seed. Solms-Laubach found fertile seed in many Ne- 

 apolitan figs and frankly admits that their presence can 

 only be explained by the influence of pollen. Figs of 

 various edible varieties, which were sent from Brazil by 

 Fr. Miiller to Professor Solms-Laubach (44) were inva- 

 riably found void of embryos. In that country no capri- 

 figs existed, just as in California. Until further the par- 

 thenogenesis theory must be disregarded for the Ficiis 

 carica tribe. In northern Italy G. Arcangeli found 

 "some" fertile seeds in Fico hiancolino, which he calls 

 a semi-wild fig, the majority of its seeds, however, being 

 merely shells (46). In the other figs growing in the 

 vicinit}^ of Pisa, such as the Fico ■piomhinese and the Fico 

 verdino, no fertile seed were ever found. 



The conclusion which I draw from the above and other 

 investigations in regard to the perfect and fertile seeds 

 found in our common edible, which produce fruit with- 

 out polHnation, are as follows: Figs with only mule flow- 

 ers cannot produce seed with fertile embryos or with 

 semi -developed embryos. These so-called seeds are 



