Common Fig 



37^ 



grown for its fruit that its origin is quite uncertain. It has escaped to roadsides 

 and fields in the warmer portions of our area, where it has become well established 

 in some places. Its maximum height is about 9 meters. 



The trunk is very short, the branches irregular, forming a roundish head. 

 The bark is close, rather smooth, reddish or pale gray. The twigs are stout, pithy, 

 hairy at first, becoming smooth, green or gray, and marked by leaf and stipule 

 scars. The leaves are thick, firm and leathery, suborbicular or oval in outline, 

 5 to 15 cm. long, truncate or heart-shaped at the base, deeply 5-or 7-lobed; the 

 lobes are broad or narrow, blunt at the apex and coarsely toothed or again lobed, 

 very rough, hairy and light green above, pale and somewhat hairy beneath, the 

 venation prominent on both sides; leaf-stalk stout, often as long as the blade. 

 The receptacle is pear-shaped, short-stalked, subtended by several small broad 

 bracts. The staminate flowers are rarely seen in the cultivated forms, but occur 

 in the wild fig, which is called Caprifig, and is so different in appearance that it 

 was thought to be a different species by the early botanists; the perianth is 3-to 

 5-lobed; stamens i to 5, usually 3, their filaments longer than the perianth. The 

 pistillate flowers have a 3- to s-lobed per- 

 ianth; the ovary is superior, i- or rarely, 

 2-celled, ovule i, style lateral, tapering, 

 much exceeding the perianth, forked into 

 2 stigmatic lobes. Receptacles that, 

 owing to an imperfect ovary, do not pro- 

 duce seed, but are taken possession of by 

 a small wasp-like insect, which establish 

 their home in them, are called gall- 

 flowers, while imperfect pistillate flowers, 

 which neither produce seed nor become 

 occupied by the fig insect, are called 

 mules by fig growers. The fruit is usually 

 obliquely pear-shaped, 5 to 7.5 cm. long, 

 varying in color from white, through 

 green and yellow to purple and brown, 

 smooth, soft and fleshy; the seed-like 

 nutlets are imbedded in the fleshy walls 

 of the enlarged yellow and brittle receptacle, each containing a soUtary suspended 

 seed with a straight embryo in fleshy endosperm. 



There are over 400 varieties of Figs in cultivation, of which there are three classes, 

 the ordinary Fig, which flowers twice in the year, producing fruits each time, 

 whether the ovaries have been pollinated or not; the first crop is called Early figs 

 or " Brebas," the second crop is called Summer figs. San Pedro figs produce but 

 one crop, the early or Brebas; their second flowers are "mules," and produce no 

 fruit. Smyrna figs will not produce fruit unless the ovary is pollinated; they 

 produce perfect seeds, to which they owe their nutty flavor; they bear no staminate 



Fig. 329. — Common Fig. 



