FOR VICTORIAN INDUSTRIAL CULTURE. 



89 



one crop a year, supplies the greatest quantity of Figs for 

 drying, among which the Marseillaise and Bellonne are con- 

 sidered the best. The Barnisote and the Aubique produce 

 delicious large fruits, but they must be dried with fire-heat, 

 and are usually consumed fresh. The ordinary drying is 

 effected in the sun. For remarks on this and other points 

 concerning the Fig, the valuable tract recently published by 

 the Kev. Dr. Bleasdale should be consulted. The first crop 

 of figs grows on wood of the preceding year, the last crop 

 however on wood of the current year. Varieties of particu- 

 lar excellence are known from Genoa, Savoy, Malaga, Anda- 

 lusia. 



PiCUS columnaris, Moore and Mueller. 



The Banyan-tree of Lord Howe's Island, therefore extra 

 tropical. One of the most magnificent productions in the 

 whole empire of plants. Mr. Fitzgerald, a visitor to the 

 island, remarks that the pendulous air-roots, when they touch 

 the ground, gradually swell into columns of the same 

 dimensions as the older ones, which already became converted 

 into stems, so that it is not apparent which was the parent 

 trunk ; there may be a hundred of stems to the tree, on 

 which the huge dome of dark evergreen foliage rests, but 

 these stems are all alike, and thus it is impossible to say 

 whence the tree comes or whither it goes. The allied Fig- 

 trees of continental East Australia have great buttresses, but 

 only now and then a pendulous root, approaching in 

 similarity the stems of Ficus columnaris. The Lord Howe's 

 Island Fig-tree is more like F. macrophylla than F. 

 rubiginosa ; but F. columnaris is more rufous than either. 

 In humid, warm sheltered tracts of Victoria, this grand 

 vegetable living structure may be raised as an enormous 

 bower for shade and for scenic ornament. The nature of the 

 sap, whether available for caoutchouc or other industrial 

 material, requires yet to be tested. 



Ficus Cunninghami, Miquel. 



Queensland, in the eastern dense forest-regions. Mr. 

 O'Shanesy designates this as a tree of sometimes monstrous 

 growth, the large spreading branches sending down roots, 

 which take firm hold of the ground. One tree measured 

 was 38 feet in circumference at two feet from the ground, the 

 roots forming wall-like abutments, some of which extended 

 20 feet from the tree. Several persons could conceal them- 

 selves in the large crevices of the trunk, while the main 

 branches stretched across a space of about 100 feet. A 

 kind of caoutchouc can be obtained from this tree. A still 



