See [page 156]
A FRUITING BRANCH OF THE COCKSPUR THORN
The Golden Fig
Ficus aurea, Nutt.
The golden fig climbs up other trees and strangles its host with its coiling stems and aërial roots. One far-famed specimen has grown and spread like a banyan tree, its trunk and head supported by secondary stems that have struck downward from the branches. Smooth as a beech in bark, crowned with glossy, beautiful foliage, like the rubber plants, this parasitic fig is a splendid tropical tree, but the host that supports all this luxuriance is sacrificed utterly. The little yellow figs that snuggle in the axils of the leaves turn purple, sweet, and juicy as they ripen. They are sometimes used in making preserves. An interesting characteristic of the wood of the golden fig is its wonderful lightness. Bulk for bulk, it is only one fourth as heavy as water.
THE PAPAWS
Two of the forty-eight genera of the tropical custard-apple family are represented by a solitary species each in the warmer parts of the United States. Important fruit and ornamental trees in the tropics of the Old World are included in this family, but their New-World representatives are not the most valuable. However, they have a sufficient number of family traits to look foreign and interesting among our more commonplace forest trees; and because their distribution is limited they are not generally recognized in gardens, where they are planted more for curiosity than for ornament.
The Papaw
Asimina triloba, Dunal.