344 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
produced in clustered racemes upon the trunk and old limbs. The 
figs are sweet and delicate. 
The Common Fig (Ficus carica) was originally found in the 
eastern and western regions of the Mediterranean. It was intro- 
duced and has been cultivated in Europe from the most ancient 
times. They are frequently found growing almost spontaneously 
in the South of France. Generally growing as a shrub, the Fig 
can also be found as a tree of four or five feet in height. The 
leaves vary in form on the same plant. They generally present 
from three to seven unequal and obtuse lobes. The flowers are 
unisexual, and placed upon the internal walls of a common 
receptacle, pierced at the vertex with a small orifice, that protects 
a large number of imbricated bracts. The male flowers have a 
calyx composed of three sepals, with three stamens opposed to 
them, and bilocular anthers that open from within by two longi- 
tudinal clefts. The female flowers have a calyx formed of five 
sepals, and a pistil composed of an upper ovarium, surmounted by 
a style, that divides itself into two stigmated branches. This 
ovarium is unilocular, and encloses only one ovule. The fruit ot 
the botanists (that generally known to the world) is a thick, fleshy, 
and succulent receptacle, that constitutes the Fig. The fruit we 
‘Say, then, is an achenium; and the grain contains under these 
integuments a fleshy albumen, in which is a recurving embryo. 
The Arrocarracex, or Bread-fruit tribes, abound in the 
warmer parts of the world, and many of them are natives of the 
tropics. They bear so close a resemblance to the Nettle tribes 
(Urtica), that botanists find it. difficult to separate them by any _ 
well-defined characteristics. Their chief characters are a very 
tmpertectly-formed calyx, no corolla, leaves with inconspicuous 
stipules, a rough foliage, and an acrid milky juice which often 
contains caoutchouc ; the flowers are collected round the head, and 
the ovules suspended singly from the upper part of the oe 
Their milk, which is always acrid, acquires properties 0 uf 
tree (Antiaris) which render them intensely poisonous ; that oF 
stance must, therefore, be entirely absent before the fruit 
eaten with safety. This applies even to the Common Fig, 
in its immature state, when milky, is acrid and unwholesome pee 
as the milk disappears, its place is supplied by sugar, and the 
can be 
which 
but 
