316 Notes ajid Enquiries on certain Plants 



Dr. Mease in Oard. Mag. vii. 508, " The milky juice, of which three fruits 

 will yield a pint." — Gard. Mag. iv. 261. The proportion of this quantity 

 exceeds that of the quantity obtained from unripe fruits by Nuttall, who has, 

 on this subject, noticed as follows : — " The bark and fruit, on incision, give 

 out a milky sap ; that of the [unripe, see Gard. Mag. i. 357.] fruit is aromatic, 



but not agreeable to the taste From two or three of the unripe fruit 



which 1 described as seen growing in Mr. Choteau's garden, at St. Louis, in 

 1810, I expressed about half a pint of a milky sweetish fluid, which, unlike 

 most lactescent saps, quickly separated into a clear liquid, and a subsiding 

 feculent matter, almost appearing like the action of coagulation in milk. — 

 Nuttall in Lamberfs App., and quoted in Gard. Mag. i. 357. 



Will the Fruit of Madura, aiirantiaca he produced in Britain ? Mr. W. Prince 

 has stated, Gard. Mag. ii. 350., that " the female .... has been sent to Europe 

 in abundance," and Britain has received its proportion ; hence plants of the 

 fruit-bearing sex are likely to be extant here. The opinion of one of the 

 Messrs. Loddiges, cited in II. 486., is, that " It is more than probable that it 

 [M. aurantiaca] will never fruit in this country." " I see no reason why this 

 tree should not bear the open air in England j but I presume a green-house 

 would be necessary to bring the fruit to maturity." Dr. Mease of Philadel- 

 phia, in Gard. Mag. vi. 103. " The fruit does ripen in this State [Pennsyl- 

 vania]." Dr. Mease in VI. 483. 



Madura aurantiaca has, it has been stated, borne flowers in France. In Le 

 Bon Jardinier, 1833, p. 919., it is stated that " Maculure epineux, Madura 

 aurantiaca iVz<^^.,Broussonetia tinctoria Kunth, de I'lnde et de i'Amerique," has 

 flowered for the first time in France in July 1832, in the flower-garden of the 

 Luxembourg at Paris, and in the King's garden at Neuilly. Whether dioecious, 

 and of which sex, or monoecious, is not stated. The synonym, cited from 

 Kunth, is, in Loudon's Hort. Brit. 1830, and Sweet's Hort. Brit. 1830, re- 

 ferred to Madura tinctoria D. Don, not to M. aurantiaca Nuttall; hence, it 

 seems cited wrongly in Le Bon Jardinier, where the account of M. aurantiaca 

 may be quite correct in other respects. 



The notices on Maclur« aurantiaca, which have been published in the Gar- 

 dener's Magazine, are in I. 229., 356, 357. j II. 350. 486.; IV. 261. ; VI. 103, 

 104. 483; VII. 508.; X. 61.; XL 312—316. 



i^icus Carica. {fig. 48.) 



" A bread-fruit [j?g. 41. in p. 311.] is a fig. turned inside out, 'and much . 

 larger in all its parts ; that is to say, the flowers which form the bread-fruit 

 .^'-■'Ste-o^ft, and fig grow, in both cases, upon a fleshy re- 

 k /'^^^^^ili ceptacle ; but in the former the receptacle is 

 solid, and bears its flowers externally; while in 

 the latter it is hollow, and bears its flowers 

 internally." The Penny Cyclpcedia, No. 119., 

 subject Artocarpus. 



The male sex. — This is not present in the 

 cultivated fig. Nees ab Esenbeck, in \\\^ Gen. 

 FlorcB Germ, illustrata, genus i''icus. Yet his 

 generic character states that flowers of each sex occur in one fig, but he may 

 imply upon wild plants only; and that of those the male flowers occupy the 

 upper part of the fig ; the female flowers the remaining part. In structure the 

 male flowers have a three-parted membranous calyx, three stamens inserted 

 by hair-like filaments into its base ; two-celled anthers affixed by the back; 

 and globular pollen. Nees. 



The female sex. — The flowers of this have a five-cleft calyx, whose substance 

 is continued downward, and clothes the pedicel of the flower. Ovarium one- 

 celled, one-seeded. Style thread-shaped, attached on one side of the ovarium. 

 Stigmas two awl-shaped. Nees. 



From the remark of Nees, quoted above under the male sex, it would 

 seem that the flowers in the cultivated varieties of the fig, are all of the female 



