FICUS, FIG TREE. 209 



It can be thought of as a common support or receptacle for a large number of both 

 male and female flowers that are necessary less for the success of the fig itself than they 

 are for propagating the tree from seeds. The flowers are not attached to a support like 

 flowers on a spike or catkin, but they're enclosed inside the fruit as in a capsule that's 

 spherical, conical, or pear-shaped, depending on the type. The only opening in the fruit is 

 the ostiole. It's furthermore almost completely closed up by a large number of imbricate 

 scales (about two hundred) around its edge. The male flowers are located under these 

 scales. They consist of a calyx divided into three, four, or five sections or small leaves 

 held on quite a long pedicel, & two or three stamens that terminate at their tips. The 

 female flowers are located near the stalk of the fig below the males ones. The essential 

 difference between them is that instead of stamens they have a pistil consisting of an 

 ovary that becomes a lenticular seed surmounted by one or two long styles. When the fig 

 has grown to one third of its size, or a little more, its male flowers open & fertilize the 

 female ones. It continues to grow, & it acquires the characteristic size, shape, color, &c. 

 of its species. 



I mentioned that the flowers appear to be less necessary for successful figs than 

 they are for the propagation of the tree. Figs harvested in the autumn are completely ripe, 

 in excellent condition, & sometimes even better than the summer ones, even though the 

 stamens of their male flowers have aborted & as a consequence the embryos of the 

 female flowers are sterile. Nonetheless, in the Aegean, in Italy, and in Malta, domestic fig 

 trees are cultivated whose fruit falls off before it's ripe, unless they've been caprified 

 [Translator's note: in caprification, flowers on branches of wild figs (caprifigs) are placed 

 near those of domestic figs, which allows fig wasps to help pollinate the latter]. But first 

 of all, the need for this unique procedure is due more to the climate or to some other as 

 yet unknown cause than it is to the type of fig tree, since the fruit 



