Читать книгу Fig Culture - Earle Franklin Sumner - Страница 3

Before we consider these different varieties, a few remarks on the nature and structure of the fruit are necessary. The fig which we eat is really a receptacle, on the surface of which are situated the numerous flowers. But as this surface is concave, or curved inwardly, like the hollow of a closed hand, the flowers can not be seen except when the fig is cut. Then it becomes apparent that the chamber formed by the curved receptacle communicates with the outside by means of the “eye” at its apex. In some varieties the “eye” is almost closed, opening only when the fig has reached a certain age; in others it is so large that a pea could easily pass through. The flowers are always more or less fleshy, are generally imperfect, and do not much resemble the bright flowers of other fruit trees and plants in our gardens. There are four distinct kinds of fig flowers, but these are not always found in a single fig, in fact they are rarely all found together. They are designated as follows:

Male flowers.– These possess four pollen-producing stamens. They are found only in the wild or “caprifig,” the ancestor of our cultivated figs, and in a very few varieties of edible figs.

Female flowers.– These possess a single style, stigma, and ovary, and when fertilized, produce seeds. Owing to the absence of male flowers, or the failure of the male and female flowers in the same fig to mature at the same time, they rarely produce fertile seeds unless fertilized by pollen carried by insects.

Gall flowers.– These are degenerate female flowers which do not produce seeds, the abortive ovary serving only for the habitation and breeding place of a very small wasp, the Blastophaga, which is used in caprification. The gall flowers are found only in the original wild fig.

Mule flowers.– These are imperfect female flowers, incapable of producing seeds or of affording a breeding place for the wasp. These flowers are found to the exclusion of all others in most of our cultivated figs.

Because of these differences in the flowers the numerous varieties of edible figs may be divided into tribes or subspecies. These are as follows: