Arizona republican., 1891-04-16
PolLlNATlON.
How Fig and Some other Trees Are
 Fertilized.

tertiltxed.
 A correspondent asks "Where are the flowers of the fg2 It is said that noth- ing fruits without Towering. l have two fig trees. One ripens great crops of fruit each season, the other gets full of fruit, which grows to one-third size, and then all falls off. can see no flow CTS on either tree at any time"
 Nevertheless, the fig flowers, and flowers abundautly. But they are hid den from sight, being inclosed within the body of the young fruit, with a slight opening at the eye in the center of the larger or upper end to the open ain The male and female flowers are both inside the same fig; the male flow CTS on one side of the inner surface of the fruit, the female on the other. It is hard to find common plant with an arrangement of the flowers anything like those of the fig, but, for compari- son, take the common corn. In botany the part that sustains the flowers first and the fruit afterward is termed the receptacle. In corn the cob is the re- ceptacle, and the silks, one of which reaches the bottom or ovary of each grain, are the female flowers. The stigmas of these are the forks or bifur- cations at their ends. The tassels at the head of the stalks are the male flow CTS, which produce the pollen, which, falling down when ripe, lodges on tho sticky forks of the silks, where it is ab- sorba1 ond rorr;ad Joup tn tba nyorxy at the base of each grain, which it pollin- ates or quickens, causing it to have life and grow into grain of corn. The pollen grains from each tassel are very minute and hundreds of thousands in numbers, and are usually ripe and shed before the stigmas of the silks on the same stalk are stigmatic or ready to re- ceive it; so that the pollen of any par ticular stalk seldom pollinates the silks of the stalk on which it grew, which is considered wise provision of nature to prevent in-and-in breeding. Now we can explain the flowers of the fig under standingly and learn why some varieties of figs do not mature any fruit on this coast, especially while young. Nearly every farmer has noticed that an iso- lated stalk of corn seldom if ever bears an ear of corn. One, and the main req son, is given above-in the pollen being shed before the stigmas of the silks are ready to receive it, and another is that the least wind carries the light pollen all away, and the silk gets none of it. And we see such great stalks of corn, when isolated from other stalks, with none or two or three or a dozen grains of corn only on full-grown cob (recep- tacle), while in field of corn pollen from different stalks would constantly pervade the whole air and drift with the wind for a great distance and pollinate all the silks. Corn has been known to be pollinated from another variety a mile away to,the windward.
 In the fig the receptacle is nearly the whole inner surface of the young fruit, with the male flowers arranged as ex- plained above. Now, if both sets of flowers bloom, reopen or open at ex- actly the same time, and the pollen was acceptable and fertile to the female flower, this arrangement would be about the best possible for perfect pollination, shut up as they are in nearly closed room together But in fact, in many | figs-and the great majority of other plants-this does not happen. The pol len, instead, reopens hours and even days before the stigmas of the pistils of that flower are ready to receive it. and the opening at the end of the fig is so small that there is little chance for the pollen of other flowers to find the way in. If the pollen of the fig was like that of corn-made up of exceedingly light, i dust-like bodies, to be carried every where by the wind-some grains would find their way in. Fig pollen seems to be of the sticky. moss-like kind, and not drifted about by air currents. This leaves the fig tree in a pretty bad shape to give any fruits. Here on this coast most varieties are in that bad shape. In the native countries of the fig tree there 1 is said to be a little insect that runs in and out of the opening in the young fruit, when in flower, which carries with it the sticky pollen from other flowers it has visited, and in this way all are pollinated. There is another TO- nance that branches of the wild male | fig from the forest are hung in the branches of the fig wished to be made fruitful at the right time, to scatter it's pollen over the young fruit and pollinate it. It is possible that there is little truth and good deal of romance in both of these theories. But the practi- cal facts seem to be about as follows:
 Long reproduction of the fig from seeds has produced a few varieties that will pollinate all their own flowers we'll and freely and others that will do so partially These are more or less fruit | ful wherever the climate is suitable to | the fig, and there are also few others that never pollinate their own showers, but nevertheless bear abundant crops of what we term fruit. The seeds are the true fruit, and what we term the fruit is only the enlarged meaty receptacle. Such figs never mature seeds, They have the seed hull, but no meat or germ in them-exactly the same as we have grapes, pears, apples, cherries, etc. with abundant fruit (so called), but no seeds fruit) Then it is doubtful if those va, rieties of fS which are now barren here will ever bear tor rather mature, fruit, yet some such varieties that do not bear fruit while young take on the fruiting habit with age and become very productive and lasting.
 The common black or Mission fig is enormously productive, but develops no seeds. These rules apply generally to all our fruit trees ,'and there is val.