SMALL FRUITED FIG-TREE. 
5 
petioles 2 inches or more in length; the fruit is also 
said to be scarlet, of the size of a hazel-nut, and sweet- 
ish and not unpleasant. In our variety (3. the leaves 
are wholly oval and not narrowed at the base. 
Plate XLIII. 
A branch of the natural size. 
The milky juice of the Fig-trees is more or less acrid 
and foetid, however sweet and wholesome the fruit may 
be, and that of the Ficus toxicaria of Sumatra is ac- 
counted poisonous. The sap of several of the South 
American and Mexican species, inspissated, affords 
caoutphouc. 
The cultivated Fig, ( Ficus Carica ,) in its wild state, 
is a humble and distorted shrub, affecting rocks and 
ruins, bearing a fruit of inferior flavour, but with the 
parts of fructification very perfect. Such figs as seem 
to drop off before maturity, are commonly those in 
which the stamens are most numerous or effective. 
These are carefully collected in the Levant to fer- 
tilize the female blossoms of the cultivated Fig, which 
will explain the mystery of caprification. In these coun- 
tries the fruit, fresh, or dried in the sun, forms an 
important part of the food of the inhabitants. 
The Banyan Tree, (Ficus Indica ,) nearly allied to 
our F. aurea, becomes in India an immense tree, spread- 
ing very wide, and throwing down rope like roots into 
the soil. Marsden mentions one of these growing near 
Memgee, 20 miles west of Patna, in Bengal, which gave 
the enormous diameter of 370 feet; the circumference 
of the shadow, at noon, was 1,116 feet, and there were 
50 or 60 stems. It is called the priests’ tree, and held 
in such veneration by the Gentoos, that if any one cuts 
off a branch, he is looked upon as sacrilegious, and held 
in the greatest abhorrence. 
