396 G. King — New Sjpecies of Ficus from Neiv Guinea. [No. 4, 



tmncate, and in not a few bicrnral. It is, however, often very diffieult 

 to determine the exact form of the stigma, from the fact that at an 

 early stage the stigmas of the fertile female flowers of the same recep- 

 tacles are joined together in a dense felted mass, from which it is nearly 

 impossible to detach any individual in a state of entirety. After ferti- 

 lisation, the ovary becomes developed into an achene which tends to be 

 unilaterally emarginate (many achenes are very distinctly reniform), 

 and the style becomes more lateral, or even basal. The ripe achene has 

 a erustaceous pericarp of a pale yellow colour and with a more or less 

 minutely tuberculate or nndulate surface. External to the erustaceous 

 coat, there is occasionally a glairy or viscid layer. The pericarp is never 

 very thick, and sometimes it is conspicuously thin. On cutting the 

 achene open the embryo is seen with a small amount of albumen. I 

 have not, however, paid much attention to the relation of the albumen 

 to the embryo. Not a few of the perfect female flowers fail to be ferti- 

 lised. But the fact of the barrenness of such is not recognisable until 

 the achene has been cut open, and they are found to contain no embryo. 

 Externally these infertile achenes exactly resemble those containing 

 embryos. 



" Besides the above four kinds of flowers, there occur, in all the 

 Bpecies of Ficus which I have examined, a set of flowers which, adopting 

 the name given to them by Count Solms-Laubach, I call gall flowers. 

 My own name for these was originally insect-attached females; but 

 Count Solms-Laubach's name being much shorter and more suitable, I 

 have adopted it. The existence of these gall flowers, as a separate and 

 distinct kind of flower in this genus, was first made publicly known by 

 the distinguished botanist just mentioned, in Botanische Zeitung, Nos. 33 

 to 36 for 1885. My own observations and inquiries on Ficus have been 

 in progress since 1878, but on account of my unwillingness to publish 

 anything until I had completed my research, I have been anticipated in 

 the publication of the facts about gall flowers. The gall flowers in 

 many respects resemble the fertile female flowers : they have in most 

 cases a similar perianth, an ovary, and a style. When fully developed, 

 they are recognised at a glance by their containing the larva of an insect, 

 which can often be seen through the pericarp of the false achene into 

 which the ovary develops. But whether the larva be visible or not, or 

 whether it be present or not, the false achene of the gall flower may, in 

 its later stages, be distinguished from the true achene of the fertilised 

 ovary of the perfect or fertile female flower by being more often pedi- 

 cillate, and by its shape being usually globular and rarely elliptic or 

 reniform ; by its surface being smooth, not minutely tubercular or 

 undulate, and never viscid or glairy ; and frequently also by the tense, 



