Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. For the text given here, see Garden and field (Adelaide), vol. 16, no. 192 (May 1891), pp. 181-2 (B91.05.02). Hughes had written to W. B. Hemsley at Kew Gardens asking about the failure of the Smyrna fig in South Australia and Hemsley, in his reply, suggested that Hughes should consult M. Hughes forwarded Hemsley's letter to M, and subsequently gave both it and M's response to Garden and field for publication.

South Yarra,

2

Vic.

19th April, 1891.

The fig-tree which produces the ordinary edible fig is unisexual, and what is cultivated here and in many other parts of the world constitutes the female plant. As I am just much extra engaged for the expedition of Sir Thos. Elder,

3

Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition, 1891-2.

and the proposed South Polar voyage of Baron Nordenskiold,

4

See Home et al. (1992).

I have not yet examined carefully the sample of figs sent by you, but I cannot doubt that the flowers in the figs of yours are also all pistillate only — indeed, at a hurried examination of your samples I can find only female flowers in them.

The male trees may, perhaps, exist also in Australia, but as I am not administering any cultural establishment any longer since a series of years, I have not the same facilities of introducing and inspecting important new utilitarian plants as in former times.

To produce figs of superior or best quality for drying, it is necessary that caprification should take place, which means pollinization of the female flowers in the edible fig by the aid of a small peculiar fly — a kind of Cynips. I use here the older name of the insect familiar to all. It does not seem that any other species of insect will fecundate Ficus carica. The Smyrna Fig is more subject to dropping immaturely than many other varieties of figs if remaining unimpregnated, but they may fall also from other causes prematurely. If even male receptacles by some alterning generation were produced, fertilization would probably not take place by agency of local insects here from the male flowers of the Capri Fig. By some marvellous arrangement in nature, as found out by Brigade Surgeon Dr. King, the Director of the Botanical Garden of Calcutta, and by Count Salms Sanbadi, the Director of the Botanical Garden of Strasburg, the flowers of the male tree only are accompanied by a second kind of flowers, called gall-flowers, and these alone are so organiesd

5

organised.

as to receive the ova of the fig-fly for hatching. To facilitate the freshly developed insect to carry mechanically the pollen of the male flowers to the seed-bearing flowers of the female plant, some few of the male receptacles, which are smaller than the edible female figs, are placed on the harvest-yielding fig-trees, when fecundation of the pistillate flowers takes place, and figs are the result, the seeds of which will germinate, the seedlings being partly male, partly female. The seeds of figs such as we here get from solely female trees do not germinate.

Although we can dry unfertilised figs for rather fair fruit, they cannot by far compare to the best sorts of commercial dried figs.

The fertilised figs, when properly exsiccated, have a better consistence, a superior keeping power, a finer aroma, and a nicer colour, and are far less apt to drop (unless over fecundated) while ripening, than those dried figs which we get here from our own orchards for our tables without fertilization. That peculiar varieties of figs raised in Australia and in some other countries famed for their dried figs are preferable for orchards of this purpose cannot be denied; but the main question before us in Australia resolved itself into how to obtain the staminate, and therefore also gall-flowered tree and the fig-fly.

The seedlings we can easily enough raise as regards both sexes by merely obtaining seeds taken from fresh well-ripened figs where the caprification process is employed. But to obtain the living fig-fly it becomes necessary to import (perhaps, best from Smyrna) male trees at the seasons when the ova have only just been deposited by the Cynips in the gall flowers.

I would advise you therefore to write directly to Her Majesty's Consul in Smyrna to procure cuttings in the state above mentioned of the male tree, and to send him a Ward case filled with, perhaps, young Araucaria (which travel easily in a closed glass-roofed case, and are always particularly acceptable in the countries at the Mediterranean Sea), with a view of planting at Smyrna by the hands of an experienced gardener the male fig-tree cuttings in suitable soil contained into the case, adjusting the humidity nicely and fixing the cuttings properly. By some little care the case with its contents should arrive all rightly in Adelaide. If your case was despatched soon it would likely be in good time for this season, and you could write a mail or two before. It might be desirable to send a remittance to the Consulate as, necessarily, expenses, for horticultural assistance, freight, supervision on the voyage, &c., would occur. I would further advise that in the case be placed also cuttings of female fig-trees with half-ripening fruits, so that the Cynips should, gradually maturing, have additional sustenance. As a matter of course, if the plants arrive, as well as the fig-flies, alive they must immediately get cultural care near your own fig-trees.

The female cuttings ought to be taken from the best Smyrna varieties, so that they be simultaneously acquired by South Australia, if you have them not already there.