6 



1ULLETIN 732, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



permits. The culture of Smyrna figs on the contrary necessitates the 

 simultaneous culture of caprifigs which harbor the fig insect and 

 bear the pollen necessary to fertilize figs of the Smyrna type. 



The fig is not a fruit in the sense in which we regard, the apple, 

 peach, etc., but is what is known to botanists as a receptacle, upon 

 the inner surface of which are arranged hundreds of unisexual flow- 

 ers. At the apex of the receptacle is an opening called the eye, 

 which in the young fruit is closed by a number of scales or imbricated 



bracts. The blossoms are 

 therefore effectually cut 

 off from the outer world, 

 and as the female flowers 

 can not be supplied with 

 pollen by the wind and 

 can not pollinate them- 

 selves, dependence must 

 be had on the fig insect 

 (BlastppJiaga psenes) . 



CROPS OF THE FIG TREE. 



All of the female fig 

 trees, both of the Smyrna 

 class, the fruit of which 

 never matures without 

 pollination, and most of 

 the other large class, 

 which does not require 

 pollination, have two 

 well-defined crops. The 

 first pushes from the old 

 wood and appears in 

 spring, ripening in July 

 and August. In Spam 

 these fruits are called 

 hrebas and in France 

 figues jleurs or figues d'ete. 

 The next, which is the main crop, called in Spain Mgos and in France 

 figues d'automne, springs from the axils of the leaves of the new wood 

 and ripens in summer and fall. 



The male or caprifig tree has two well-defined crops and a third 

 which is in doubt by some authorities (figs. 2 and 3). To these for 

 convenience the Neapolitan names profichi (spring crop), mammoni 

 (summer crop), and mamme (winter crop) have been applied. The 

 mamme crop forms in autumn on the wood of the current season 

 and the Blastophaga from the preceding mammoni oviposits in 



Fig. 2.— Mature mamme (winter) and young proflchi (spring) 

 caprifigs . The mamme figs are the larger ones . (Nearly one- 

 half natural size.) 



