FICUS CARICA. COMMON FIG TREE. 
Class XXIII. POLYGAMIA.— Order III. TRICECIA. 
Natural Order, ARTOCARPE^E. — THE BREAD FRUIT TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) Exhibits a section of the unripe fruit. (6) Two views of the female florets. (':) The male florets. 
The Fig-tree is considered as a native of Asia ; but has been cultivated in the south of Europe from the 
most remote antiquity. “ It was probably,” says a late writer, “ known to the people of the East before 
the Cerealia ; and stood in the same relation to men living in the primitive condition of society, as the 
banana does to the Indian tribes of South America, at the present day. With little trouble or cultivation 
it supplied their necessities ; and offered, not an article of occasional luxury, but of constant food, whether 
in a fresh or a dried state. As we proceed to a more advanced period of the history of the species, we still 
find the fig an object of general attention. The want of blossom on the fig-tree was considered as one of 
the most grievous calamities by the Jews.” — Medical Botany. 
In the fructification of the fig there is something very singular. It has no visible flowers ; for the 
fruit arises immediately from the joints of the tree, in the form of little buds, with a perforation or aperture 
at the end, but not showing any thing like petals. As the fig enlarges, the flower comes to maturity in its 
concealment, and in eastern countries, the fruit is improved by a singular operation. It is performed by 
suspending with threads, above the cultivated figs, branches of the wild fig, which are full of insects called 
cynips. When one of these has become winged it quits its house, and penetrates the cultivated figs for the 
purpose of laying its eggs; and thus it ensures the fructification by dispersing the pollen, and afterwards 
hastens the ripening by puncturing the pulp, and causing a dispersion or circulation of the nutritious juices. 
In France, straws dipped in olive oil are inserted to produce the same effect. Another fact is very re- 
markable. The fig tree yields fruit through a considerable portion of the year. The first ripe figs are 
called boccore, and reach maturity about the latter end of June, though, as in other trees, a few ripe ones 
are produced before the full season. These few are probably of an inferior value, according to the language 
of the Prophet Hosea : “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness ; I found your fathers as the first ripe 
fruit in the fig tree at her first time.” When the boccore approaches perfection, the karmouse, or summer 
fig, begins to be found. This is the crop that is dried. And, when the karmouse ripens, in Syria and Bar- 
bary, there appears a third crop, which oftens hangs and matures upon the tree after the leaves are shed. 
In no country is it found in elevated situations, or at a distance from the sea. Hence its abundance 
in the islands of the Archipelago, and on the shores of the adjoining continents. It has been cultivated 
from time immemorial, and indeed, the fig was said to have been the first fruit eaten by man. In the Bible 
we read frequently of the fig tree, both in the Old and New Testament. Among the Greeks, we find, by 
the laws of Lycurgus, that figs formed a part of the ordinary food of the Spartans. The Athenians were so 
choice of their figs, that they did not allow them to be exported ; and the informers against those who 
broke this law, being called sukophantai, from two Greek words, signifying the discoverers of figs, gave rise 
to our modern word sycophant. The fig tree under which Romulus and Remus were suckled, and the 
basket of figs in which the asp was conveyed to Cleopatra, are examples familiar to every one of the fre- 
quency of the allusions to this tree in ancient history. At Rome, the fig was carried next to the vine in the 
processions of Bacchus, who was supposed to have derived his corpulency and vigour from this fruit, and 
not from the grape. Pliny, also, recommends figs as being nutritive and restorative ; and it appears from 
him, and other ancient writers, that they were given to professed champions and wrestlers to refresh and 
strengthen them. 
The first fig trees planted in England are said to have been brought from Italy in 1525, in the reign of 
Henry VIII. by Cardinal Pole, and placed by him against the walls of the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth. 
At Mitcham, in the garden of the Manor House, formerly the private estate of Archbishop Cranmer, there 
was in Miller’s time, the remains of a white fig tree confidently asserted to have been planted by Cranmer 
himself; but it was destroyed in 1790. Its stem, some years before, was ten inches in diameter; but its 
branches were very low and weak. The fig tree, though introduced so early, appears for a long time not to 
have been extensively cultivated in England. Professor Burnett thinks that this was owing to a popular pre- 
