FIG TREE. 
311 
the base side appear naked, opening a way for the 
insect, which makes several furrows in the inside of 
the fruit, but never touches the stigmata, though it 
frequently eats the germen. The wounded or gan- 
grenous part is at first covered or shut up by the 
blossoms ; but the hole is by degrees opened and 
enlarged of various sizes in the different fruits ; the 
margins and sides being always gangrenous, black, 
hard, and turned inwardly. The same gangrenous 
appearance is also found near the scales, after the 
insect has made a hole in that place. The tree is 
very common in the plains and fields of Lower 
Egypt. It buds in the latter end of March, and 
the fruit ripens in the beginning of June. It is 
wounded or cut by the inhabitants at the time it 
buds ; for without this precaution it is said not to 
bear fruit. The figs are shaped like the common 
sort ; they rarely, however, arrive at maturity ; 
when they do they are eaten by the people, and 
have a sweet taste, but are said to be digested with 
difficulty. 
The Banian Tree ( Ficus religiosa Linn.) is one 
of the most striking of Nature’s productions. It is 
a very singular tree, growing in the stony and 
sandy districts of the East Indies, where it reaches 
to a vast height, and spreads its branches in every 
direction. The banian tree possesses an advantage 
over the rest of the vegetable creation ; it is enabled 
to increase without the assistance of seed, by send- 
ing forth young fihres from time to time, which, 
finding their wav to the earth, take rooty and thus 
