64 The Philippine Journal of Science im 



widely, and many of the insects involved seem to be quite con- 

 fined to certain species of figs. At Los Banos, Philippine Islands, 

 with Ficus nota (Blanco) Merrill ^ abundant, and occurring 

 almost at the door of the bamboo shack in which I live, I have 

 been enabled to begin a study of the caprification phenomena 

 in this particular fig. In outlining my preliminary results I shall 

 not repeat descriptions of the species or even detail its flower 

 characters. Ficus nota is a tree of the section Covellia, appar- 

 ently common throughout the Philippines.* The figs are pro- 

 duced often in enormous quantities at the base of the trunk and 

 even to some little distance underground. Fruiting twigs also 

 occur higher on the trunk and even on the branches, although 

 the number produced above is small. 



As usual among figs, certain trees of Ficus nota produce 

 only gall flowers and no seed, but have fertile male flowers 

 (stamens). Other trees of the same species produce only figS-^ 

 containing fertile female flowers destined to make seed, and these 

 figs usually have no fertile stamens, although rudiments are 

 frequently present in the area just within the ostiole commonly 

 occupied by the stamens in gall figs. The young flower zone 

 of the fertile fig is bright pink in color, which is rare in the 

 caprifig form. Also the fertile figs, especially the young, incline 

 to deep purplish in external color, with greenish or yellowish 

 flecks, whereas the caprifigs are usually entirely green. This 

 condition is locally common, but I do not know whether or not 

 it is general throughout the Islands. 



On trees bearing figs with gall flowers and stamens, the pro- 

 duction and ripening of the figs is almost continuous, and the 

 broods of gall insects thus overlap endlessly. There is no pos- 

 sibility of here distinguish? '^ such seasonal procession as is indi- 

 cated by the profichi, mammoni, and mammae of the Smyrna 

 caprifig; on the contrary, the seed-bearing trees, locally at least, 

 seem to produce figs in regular crops. At the present writing 

 (November), a crop of large figs just maturing may be found 

 on fertile trees, but another crop of small figs is also coming 

 on — some of them already being large enough to receive the 

 insects coming from the gall-bearing trees. 



If a large mature caprifig (gall fig) is opened, the walls of the 



' Determined by E. D. Merrill, Bureau of Science. 



* Blanco, FI. Filip. ed. 1 (1837), 677 {F. aspera nota); Merrill, Bur. 

 Govt. Labs. (1904), No. 17, 10; Elmer, Leafi. Philip. Bot. (1906), 1, 

 198 (from Leyte) ; (1911), 4, 1262 (describes the fertile tree, from Min- 

 danao). 



