some, by opening drains and thinning: out 

 trees or thickets. [J. B.] 



FICINIA. A genus of cyperaceous plants 

 belonging to the tribe Scirpece. The in- 

 florescence is either in solitary spikes or in 

 conglomerated heads of spikes. Scales im- 

 bricated, some of the lower empty ; styles 

 three-cleft, rarely two-cleft ; ovary with a 

 fleshy disc; achenes sharply pointed or 

 j muticous. There are upwards of forty 

 species, nearly all of which are natives of 

 South Africa. [D. M.] 



FICOIDALES. One of Lindley's alliances 

 of perigynal Exogens, represented by Me- 

 sembryanthemum. 

 | FICOIDE. (Pr.) Mesembryanthemum. 



FICOIDE.E, or Fig-Marigold family. A 

 natural order of calycifloral dicotyledons, 

 the type of Lindley's ficoidal alliance. The 

 order is better known as Mesembryacece or 

 Mesembryanthemacece. [J. H. B.] 



FICUS. A genus of Moracece, including 

 the cultivated Fig. The flowers are usually 

 incomplete, collected on axillary recep- 

 tacles, which are either stalked or sessile, 

 pear-shaped or globular, with three bracts 

 at the base. There is a four to six-leaved 

 perigone ; in the staminate flowers one to 

 six stamens; and in the pistillate a one- 

 celled ovary. The fruit consists of gjobose 

 or angular achenes, with a dry thin rarely 

 pulpy pericarp. They are erect or creep- 

 ing trees or shrubs, found in Southern 

 Europe and Africa, and in large numbers 

 in the warm parts of India, and in the is- 

 lands of the Indian Sea and of the South- 

 ern Ocean. They have alternate rarely op- 

 posite entire or lobed leaves. There are 

 nearly 160 known species. Of the cultivat- 

 ed Fig there are a vast number of varieties. 

 The part eaten is the hollow receptacle 

 which contains the flowers. The achenes, 

 or, as they are commonly called, seeds, are 

 ultimately immersed in the pulpy mass of 

 the receptacle. Turkey figs are imported 

 from Smyrna in small boxes called drums. 

 From the old genus Ficus, Miquel has 

 separated the genus Urostigma, Pharma- 

 cosycea, Pogonotrophe, Sycomorus, Covillia, 

 and Syncecia. See Plate 6, figs, a, f; and 

 Plate 10, fig. b. [J. H. B.] 



The Fig of our gardens is the F. Carica 

 of botanists. The name Ficus applied to 

 this very anciently known fruit, is most 

 probably derived from Feg, its Hebrew 

 name; that of Carica is from Caria in Asia 

 Minor, where fine varieties of it have long 

 existed. According to various authors, it 

 is a native of Western Asia, Northern 

 Africa, and the south of Europe, including 

 Greece and Italy. It is certainly indige- 

 nous to Asia Minor ; but it may have been 

 thence introduced and naturalised in the 

 islands of the Mediterranean, and the coun- 

 tries near its shores, both in Europe and 

 Africa. 



The Fig is a deciduous tree, fifteen to 

 twenty or even thirty feet high in favour- 

 able cfimates. The alternate leaves are cor- 

 date, more or less deeply three to five- 



lobed, and rough. The fruit is generally 

 shortly turbinate, but some varieties are of 

 an elongated pyriform shape ; the skin soft, 

 with shallow longitudinal furrows ; the 

 colour yellowish-white, greenish-brown, ' 

 purplish-brown, violet, or dark purple. j 

 It consists of a hollow fleshy receptacle 

 with an orifice in the top, which is sur- 

 rounded and nearly closed by a number of 

 imbricated scales— as many as 200, accord- 

 ing to Duhamel. The flowers, unlike those 

 of most fruit-trees, make no outward ap- 

 pearance, but are concealed within the 

 fig on its internal surface ; they are male 

 and female, the former situated near the 

 orifice, the latter in that part of the con- 

 cavity next the stalk. On cutting open a 

 fig, when it has attained little more than 

 one-third its size, the flowers will be seen 

 in full development, and, pi-ovided the 

 stamens are perfect, fertilisation takes 

 place at that stage of growth. But it often 

 happens that the stamens are imperfect, 

 and no seeds are formed ; nevertheless the 

 fruit swells and ripens. 



Under favourable circumstances, a fruit 

 or two is formed along the shoots at the 

 base of almost every leaf. Of these the 

 quantity that sometimes attains maturity 

 is enormous; but frequently, from vicissi- 

 tudes of cold in some climates and heat in 

 others, much of the fruit drops prema- 

 turely. It may not do so at the time when 

 dryness prevails, but at some future period 

 when moisture is sufficiently abundant : in 

 fact, the injury caused by drought to this 

 fruit becomes most apparent after moisture 

 has started the tree into vigorous growth, 

 and hence the true but remote cause of 

 failure in the crop is apt to be overlooked. 

 And if this be sometimes the case now, it 

 was much more likely to be generally so in 

 former times, when there was among cul- 

 tivators but little intelligence as regards 

 tracing effects to their causes. Accord- 

 ingly, to prevent the fruit of the Fig tree 

 from dropping prematurely, and to hasten 

 its ripening, the process of caprification 

 was resorted to. This consisted in placing 

 the fruit of a wild sort, called the Caprifig, 

 amongst the cultivated ones. An insect 

 of the gnat family infests the former, 

 which it leaves to attack the latter, en- 

 tering to the interior of the fruit by the ori- 

 fice. It is a very ancient practice, for it is 

 mentioned by the earliest Greek writers 

 on natural history, and is even minutely 

 described by Theophrastus. It appears to 

 have originated in Greece. Pliny remarks 

 that it was only used in the islands of 

 the Archipelago ; that, in his time, it was 

 entirely unknown to the Italians ; and 

 that there was no tradition of its ever 

 having been introduced to Syria or Pales- 

 tine. Its utility was doubted by some 

 authors, and among others by the celebrat- 

 ed Duhamel. He thought it' questionable 

 whether by caprification the maturity of 

 the fruit was hastened, except in the same 

 way as apples and pears are when attacked 

 by the grub. Professor Gasparrini, in an 

 essay written for the Roval Academy of 

 Sciences of Naples, details a number of 



