2 
CHERRY FIG-TREE. 
species, particularly the famous Banyan tree, ( F . indica ,) 
it sends down roots from its lofty branches resembling 
ropes, which, on reaching the soil, at length become so 
many independent trunks, in turn producing others; and 
spreading themselves on all sides without interruption, 
they present an united summit of prodigious extent, 
which, reposing on a multitude of trunks of different 
dimensions, seems like the airy vault of some vast edi- 
fice sustained by innumerable columns. 
The bark of the branches appears to be grey and 
even, the leaves are very smooth on both sides, but 
covered with innumerable minute dots on the upper 
surface. They are 3 to 4 inches long, \\ to 2 inches 
wide, with a peduncle about 1J inches long. They have 
a few distant pennated nerves inosculating towards the 
margin of the leaf, with innumerable intermediate slender 
reticulations of vessels; they are generally of an ovate 
form, rounded or almost cordate at the base, with a 
short and blunt acumination; from their axills arise 1 or 
2 peduncles about f of an inch long, each terminated 
by a bifid involucel, improperly called a calyx. The 
figs themselves are nearly globose, but sensibly wider 
at the summit, about the magnitude of small cherries, 
greenish-yellow and purple at the summit, (as they 
appear in a withered state,) with a few purplish pale 
spots. 
Of this species there appears to be a distinct variety, 
if not a species, which I shall for the present call 
(3. acuta; the leaf is elliptic, shortly acuminate, acute at 
base and faintly nerved beneath. It also becomes a 
large tree, producing a fig about the size of a cherry, 
which is yellow when ripe. 
Plate XLI. 
A branch of the natural size, a . The fruit. 
