On the Genus Ficus. 117 



however, now cultivated to a very large extent in Turkey, and 

 on the shores of the Mediterranean. It is a tree growing in 

 favourable situations to a height of twenty or thirty feet. The 

 plant is so well known in our gardens and greenhouses, that 

 it would be needless to describe it. We may, perhaps, how- 

 ever, be allowed to say a few words about the fruit, as it is a 

 "peculiar, though a common one. We hear people speak of 

 ihe " seeds" of the fig, meaning those little granular sago- 

 like things so numerous inside a fig. These are not seed, 

 which we should soon discover were we to examine them in a 

 green fig. They are each of them a small individual fruit, 

 which in this form is called an achene. The Ficus carica is not 

 cultivated for the sake of its flowers, for though it does flower, 

 and that profusely, we venture to doubt if there are many of 

 "us who have actually seen the flower. It is not showy, nor is 

 it exposed, as most flowers are, to the air and light. In most 

 •of our common fruit -producing plants, we first behold the bud, 

 then the expanded flower, which in time drops away, leaving 

 the fruit to develop itself to the size limited by nature ; but in 

 the fig, what we call the fruit is not the produce of one flower, 

 but of many. The fleshy part which we eat, is in botanical 

 language called a receptacle. (Fig. 4.) There are, however, 

 various forms of receptacles, and even in the same family to 

 which the fig belongs ; thus, for instance, inDorstenia (Fig. 5), 

 ~we have an open, somewhat irregular square receptacle, slightly 

 turned up at the edges like a tray. In this genus the flowers 

 are exposed, but are still numerous as in the fig. Another 

 common example of an open receptacle is to be found in the 

 sun-flower, and we have only to bring up the sides, and nearly 

 unite them at the top, and we shall have the same form of 

 receptacle as the fig, namely, a hollow one, with the inflo- 

 rescence inside instead of out. This inflorescence is of both 

 ■sexes, else fertilization could not take place ; and it is worth 

 noticing the provision of nature in placing the male flowers 

 near the orifice, at the apex of the fruit, while the females are 

 seated in the concave part below; by this arrangement, the 

 pollen from the male flowers, in dropping, is more sure to 

 fall on the stigmas of the females, as the figs themselves, 

 in their earlier stages of formation, and when the flowers are 

 fully expanded, are nearly always more or less upright upon 

 the stalks which bear them, seldom drooping until after fertili- 

 sation has taken place, and the receptacle has become swollen. 

 It frequently occurs, however, that the stamens are imperfect 

 and no pollen formed. A practice, called caprification, has 

 been resorted to in the East to provide for this natural de- 

 ficiency. A number of wild figs, which are often infested with 

 a species of cynips, are strung on threads and hung above the 



