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JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 13 
parasitic chalcis. Of the Blastophaga more than one hundred and 
sixty species are known, all parasites on the fig. 
The Cultivated Fig 
With two or three exceptions all the edible figs belong to the Ficus 
carica species. The number of cultivated varieties probably exceeds 
one hundred and fifty. One prominent California horticulturist, Mr. 
J. Leroy Nickel, at one time had over one hundred and twenty-five 
varieties in cultivation. Of this large number, the Lob Ingir, Turkish 
name of the well-known Smyrna variety, is unique in requiring pol¬ 
lination to cause the fruit to mature. Linneus and other botanists as 
early as 1774 reached the conclusion that the caprifig is the male form 
and all the common varieties, including the Smyrna, the female forms 
of a dioecious species. The caprifigs are called male, because they 
contain male or staminate flowers; the common varieties and Smyrnas 
are females, because they contain only female or pistillate flowers. 
These fertile or female figs may be again divided into two classes, 
namely, the Smyrna fig, the flowers of which must be pollinated in 
order to mature fruit, and the other large class, frequently called the 
Adriatic class, the fruits of which reach maturity without pollination, 
but contain no fertile seeds. The latter race includes most of the 
varieties cultivated in all fig-growing countries. 
The Smyrna Fig 
The figs of the Smyrna variety never set fruit unless the flowers are 
pollinated, or, as the process of hanging caprifigs in the Smyrna trees 
is called, caprification. Therefore the culture of the Smyrna fig 
necessitates the simultaneous culture of caprifig trees, in which the 
fertilizing insect breeds. 
The fig is not a fruit in the sense in which we regard the apple, peach, 
etc., but is what is known to botanists as a receptable, upon the inner 
surface of which are arranged hundreds of unisexual flowers. At the 
apex of the receptacle is an opening called the eye, or osteolum, 
which in the young fruit is closed by a number of scales or imbricated 
bracts. The blossoms are therefore effectually cut off from the outer 
world, and as the female flowers cannot be supplied with pollen by 
the wind and cannot pollinate themselves, dependence must be had 
on the fig insect (Blastophaga psenes). 
Life of the Blastophaga 
The male or caprifig tree has two well-defined crops and a third 
which is in doubt by some authorities. To these, for convenience, the 
Neapolitan names profichi (spring crop), mammoni (summer crop), 
