MULBERRIES AXJ1 FIGS 305 



void body with a hole in the top. The pupil 

 will be puzzled by it, for the fig seems to be 

 neither perianth nor pistil. 



368. If a young fig were cut across (Fig. 319), 

 it would be seen to contain numerous flowers 

 (both staminate and pistillate) upon the inside. 

 Each of the pistillate flowers ripens a little akene. 

 The fig is, therefore, a receptacle lined with flow- 

 ers, and the receptacle comprises most of the 

 edible portion. 



369. The fig and mulberry are closely allied. 

 They belong to the same natural family. The 

 plan and structure of the flowers are very similar. 

 They both produce multiple or collective fruits, the 

 entire flower becoming more or less thickened and 

 fleshy ; but in the one the flowers are borne 

 upon the inside of an enormously- developed recep- 

 tacle, and in the other they are borne upon a 

 slender stem -like axis. The fig fruit is- called a 

 syconium. We thus have another illustration of 

 the fact that the plan of the flower is more im- 

 portant in determining kinships than the ap- 

 pearance of the flowers or the plant (253). 



Suggestions. — Compare the fig with the strawberry and rasp- 

 berry; also with the burdock. All of these plants are very nnlike 

 the fig in morphology, but the contrast will bring out the differ- 

 ences and resemblances. Is the fig a receptacle in the sense in 

 which that term is used with the mustard (166), or as it is used 

 with the sunflower (201 )f 



U 



