FERTILISATION OF THE FIG. 
3 
obscure cause, then we could secure for the Australian 
colonies a supply of plants of the caprification fig in an ova- 
bearing state, as the mere raising staminate fig-trees from 
seeds, or their importation in a living state, would be of no 
avail, just as has been the case in California; for we could 
of course easily obtain seedlings of the staminate fig-tree from 
carefully preserved seeds of the Smyrna fig. 
All the plants examined by us from Australia were pistil- 
late only. The researches of Count Solms Laubach, Director 
of the Botanical Gardens of Strasburg, and Brigade- 
Surgeon Dr. King, Director of the Botanical Gardens of 
Calcutta, have cleared up within the last few years all doubts 
about the functions of the staminate, pistillate, and neuter 
flowers in the cultivated fig Ficus carica , so that we now 
know why only the caprification fig is fit for a deposition of 
the ova of JBlastophaga grossorum , or, as it was formerly 
called, Cynips psenes. Much valuable information on this 
subject may be obtained also from Gustav Mayer’s work on 
insects inhabiting various species of Ficus. 
The Chairman has placed himself in communication with 
Professor Hillgard, of the Rural Experimental Station of 
Berkely, California, and with Captain Ellwood Cooper, the 
most enterprising of all fruit-growers, and President of the 
Californian State Board of Horticulture, Santa Barbara, to 
elicit information about the movement set going in reference 
to the caprification in California, so that in Australia we 
might be early benefited from these experiments and any 
results arising from them. 
WILLIAM THOMAS STRUTT, 
OOTKRKMHKT PRINTER, TASMANIA. 
