98 
Dicotyledons with Incomplete Flowers — Morctcecz. 
widely in South Europe and the Levant, probably a native originally of Western Asia, and the 
Mulberries (Morns nigra and M. alba), also of Asiatic origin, now cultivated throughout Southern 
and Western Europe. The genus Fig (Ficus) is numerically by far the most important; the species 
are chiefly Tropical, often scandent, and freely throwing out adventitious roots, which clasp their 
support or become secured in the soil as in the Indian Banyan (F. indica). 
Flowers in Mulberry ( Morus ) collected in small dense unisexual spikes, usually monoecious, but the penultimate 
branches dioecious; in Fig (Ficus) clothing the inside of a hollow fleshy receptacle (the “ fig”); in Dorstenia 
immersed in a flat or concave open fleshy disk. 
FRUIT collective or multiple : in Mulberry resulting from the flowers of one spike, the perianths of which have 
become succulent; in Fig, from the enlargement and succulence of the common hollow receptacle upon which the 
minute dry flowers are arranged. 
USES, &c.—To a Tribe of this Natural Order belongs the Bread-fruit Tree ( Artocarpus incisa) of Polynesia, 
the huge fruits of which, resulting from the consolidation of the fleshy carpels and receptacle, afford an abundant 
and wholesome food. The Jack of India (A. integrifolia) is a closely allied species, with a similar though less 
palatable fruit. Nearly allied in technical character to the Bread-fruits is the Upas of Java ( Antiaris toxicaria), the 
resinous juice of which is a virulent poison, used by native tribes to tip their arrows. Another ally in Tropical 
America, the Cow-tree ( Galactodendron utile), affords from incisions in the bark a very copious milky juice, which is 
quite wholesome and used as a substitute for milk. 
Our supply of dried Figs, the fruit of Ficus Ccirica, is chiefly derived from Spain, Turkey, and Asia Minor. It 
is the most important of the few species of the vast genus Ficus bearing a succulent edible fruit. The light incor¬ 
ruptible wood of the Sycamore Fig (F. Sycomorus) of Egypt was used by the ancient Egyptians for mummy-cases. 
From Ficus elastica , often grown in parlours for the sake of its noble evergreen foliage, is obtained East Indian 
caoutchouc. Mulberry (Morus nigra and alba) owes its importance chiefly to its serving as the food of the silk-worm, 
for which purpose it, (especially M. alba from Eastern Asia) is very largely cultivated in South Europe. Paper 
Mulberry ( Broussonetia papyrifera) of Polynesia and Japan affords a tenacious liber, from which the Polynesians 
fabricate their Tapa cloth. 
