SMYRNA FIG CULTURE. 11 



California, that there are really but two kinds of fig flowers, namely, 

 pistillate and staminate, although it may be advisable to separate the 

 pistillate flowers into two kinds — those of the caprifig, called gall 

 flowers, and the ordinary flowers of all the female figs. These 

 authors enumerate the four kinds as the male and female of the 

 caprifig, the regular female flower of the Smyrna, and lastly the female 

 flowers of the Adriatic class, which some of them contend have imper- 

 fect stigmas and can not be pollinated, and therefore call them mule 

 flowers. Careful investigations by the writer have failed to disclose 

 such flowers. Pontedera and Gallesio call them fico mula and fico 

 semimula, a few of the latter being susceptible of pollination and the 

 former not at all. This idea has become so fixed in the minds of some 

 horticulturists that they are calling this class of figs "mule figs," a 

 positive misnomer and entirely unwarranted by the facts. 



The staminate flowers of the caprifig are arranged in a zone or 

 cluster at the upper part of the fig, just within the eye. The re- 

 mainder of the receptacle is filled with gall flowers which are perfect 

 female flowers, the pistils of which are modified for the purposes of 

 the female Blastophaga. The styles of these flowers are short and 

 thick compared to those of the Smyrna and other female figs and are 

 provided with a duct, down which the fig insect pushes her ovi- 

 positor into the ovary, where she deposits the egg. As evidence that 

 these are female flowers, careful examination discloses the fact that 

 these styles are surmounted usually by forked stigmas, the surfaces 

 of which are provided with the usual cells or glands and the viscous 

 coating to which the pollen grains adhere. With sufficient magnify- 

 ing power the pollen tubes can be seen pushing their way from the 

 surface of the stigma down through the cellular tissue into the ovary. 

 The gall flowers of all caprifigs are alike except for slight variations 

 in the shape of the stigmas. 



As further evidence that all the gall flowers in the caprifig are per- 

 fect female flowers, some of the persistent stigmas from ovaries con- 

 taining fertile seeds in a mammoni fig and others from galls containing 

 fully developed Blastophaga in the same fig were j)laced side by side 

 under the microscope and were found to be identical in cellular structure 

 and in every other respect. The writer is therefore satisfied that the 

 stigmas of the flowers of the mammoni caprifigs are equally as sus- 

 ceptible to pollination as are those of the female figs, and in fact are 

 so pollinated, but fail to produce more than a few seeds, for the reason 

 given in this bulletin under the heading "Caprifig seeds." (See p. 15.) 



FIG POLLINATION. 



When the Blastophaga enters the spring crop of the caprifig, the 

 stamens are in an undeveloped condition and the anthers will not 

 be ready to discharge their pollen until about two months later — 



