940 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



until it is shown we must leave it without serious consid- 

 eration. 



Second Theory — Professor Solms-Laubach the most 

 prominent of all late investigators of the edible fig, be- 

 lieves that the caprifig is the wild species from which the 

 edible fig has been originated by cultural selection by 

 man. When he speaks of caprifig he refers alone to 

 the caprifig tree, which produces male and gall flowers 

 in its various crops, but does not take in consideration 

 any purely female tree of the caprifig. To Solms-Laubach 

 the existence of a purely female tree of the edible fig 

 was unknown at the time he put forward his theory. 

 Short as his theory is and without going into details and 

 without efforts to explain everything, it must be con- 

 sidered extremely plausible. But later on Professor 

 Solms-Laubach gave up this theory or changed it to some 

 degree, adopting the one here described as the third 

 theor}^. 



Third Theory. — This theory as regards the origin of the 

 edible figs was developed by the eminent naturalist. Prof. 

 Fritz Miiller (31). He considers the caprifig to be the 

 original wild male fig tree and the edible fig the female 

 tree of the same species, both sexes having existed sepa- 

 rately and originately as wild trees, before their cultiva- 

 tion was begun by man. This cultivation must then have 

 been entirely confined to the female tree, and any improve- 

 ment in the fruit must have been brought about through 

 bud variation (99). This third theory was already held by 

 Linneus (32), and was the one which Gasparrini especiall}^ 

 endeavored to disprove. Prof. Fritz Miiller founded his 

 theory on the fact that the caprifig tree is to a remarkable 

 degree barren, producing fertile seeds always few in num- 

 bers, and only in his third crops, the " mammoni," while 

 the edible 'fig tree is supposed to show a greater fertility 



