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ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sound, with the skin violet inclining to green, the mouth closed, 

 Avhile the scales in like manner became tender and dead. At the 

 end of eleven days, one of the three first (which was split) showed 

 signs of decomposition, and was covered with mould belonging 

 to the genus Ascopliora ; the other two were still sound, but very 

 dry, with some more tender spots, accompanied by a small 

 quantity of sweet liquid. The fourth, with respect to size and 

 colour, remained unaltered, only the fissure had become deeper ; 

 the fifth, sound and without lesion, became tender and perfectly ripe, 

 had the mouth closed, and above it was a large drop of sweet liquid. 

 All the pulp had become tender, soft, and delicate, and abounded 

 with sweet moisture down to the very stalk. The taste did not 

 differ in any respect from that of a fig naturally ripened ; the 

 latex was in such abundance in its proper -vessels that they ap- 

 peared swollen, and quite full of spherical and large but irregular 

 granules. It did not appear that the sugar, or any part of it, 

 was derived from the milky fluid ; no particular matter appeared 

 in the cells of the pulp ; and the contents of the vessels of the 

 latex became of a reddish yellow with tincture of iodine. The 

 sulphuric acid had killed, but had not decomposed, the scales, 

 finally, all the mass of the fruit appeared more juicy than in 

 others in the same state of ripeness. 



With the same quantity of acid, the experiment was repeated 

 on many green receptacles of the Paradise Fig and of the Im- 

 perial Brogiotto, in a fit condition for trial, and the result was 

 the same as before : after two days they became more than twice 

 as large, and split nearly halfway down, or sometimes at length 

 to the base. The peduncle, the perigonium, and the carpel of 

 each internal flower was red, but more so in the Brogiotto, 

 the skin of which, being greatly extended, was coloured of a 

 greenish violet ; the pulp, always white, when open, gave out here 

 and there drops of milk, which were observed again along the 

 margin of the deep and irregular fissure, which remained quite 

 green. In these two open receptacles, the solidity of the pulp 

 and of the flowers, the absence of sweetness, and the shortness 

 of time in which the increase took place, were especially remark- 

 able. The splitting was the final effect on the night before 

 August 20, when the examination took place. There is clearly 

 a rankness of vegetation in all the constituent parts of the recep- 

 tacle, especially those which are internal, whose force the cuticle 

 is unable to resist, and in consequence splits. 



