The red Mulberry (M. rubra) is an American species, with leaves too rough to be good for silkworms, and very indifferent fruit. The Constantinople and Tartarian Mulberries are supposed to be only varieties of M. alba, though their fruit is good to eat, and the latter has lobed leaves.
The Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) has the male and female flowers on different plants. The male flowers are produced in pendulous catkins, and the calyx has a short tube before it divides into four segments; each flower is also furnished with a bract, but in other respects their construction is the same as that of the other flowers of the order. The female flowers have also a tubular calyx, and they are disposed in globular heads on rather long peduncles; but they differ from those of the other genera in having only a single stigma, and in the ovary being inclosed in an integument within the calyx, which becomes juicy as the seeds ripen, and not the calyx itself. The leaves are very irregularly lobed, and hairy; and the liber or inner bark is used for making what is called Indian paper.
The Osage Orange (Maclura aurantiaca), has the male and female flowers on different plants, the male being borne in short close panicles of ten or twelve flowers each, and not differing in construction from those of the other genera. The female flowers are borne on a large globular receptacle, like that of the bread-fruit; and they resemble those of that plant in construction, except that they are pitcher-shaped instead of being angular, and that they have only one stigma instead of two. The receptacle also never becomes soft and pulpy like that of the bread-fruit, but remains hard and stringy and unfit to eat. The leaves are smooth and of delicate texture, and as they abound in glutinous milk, they have been found very suitable for silkworms. The wood is of a beautiful glossy texture, and very fine and close-grained. The tree is found wild in the country of the Osage Indians, near the Mississippi, and from the rough surface of its fruit, and its golden-yellow colour, it has received the name of the Osage Orange.
The common Fig (Ficus Carica) has its male and female flowers on the same plant, and often within the same receptacle. The receptacle in this plant instead of being surrounded by the flowers, incloses them, and is, in fact, the fruit we call a fig. This receptacle is sometimes roundish, but more generally pear-shaped; and it is not quite closed, but has a little opening or eye at the upper end, which is fitted in with several very small scales. The stalk of the fig is articulated on the branch. The male flowers are generally in the upper part of the fig, and they consist of a half tubular calyx, with a limb divided into three segments, and three stamens. The female flowers have each a calyx of five sepals, and a single style with two stigmas; and they are succeeded by the seeds, or nuts as they are called, as each contains a kernel which is the true seed. The leaves are very small when they first expand, but they gradually increase in size, till they become very large. They are generally lobed, and their petioles are articulated. The figs are produced in the axils of the leaves. It may be observed here, that Du Hamel mentions that the receptacle is not closed in all the varieties of the fig, but that in some it opens naturally, when the seeds are ripe, dividing at the orifice into four equal parts, like the valves of a capsule; and even when this is not the case, the figs, when the receptacle becomes pulpy and soft from ripeness, crack and burst at the sides, so as to allow of the escape of the seeds.
As the fig is not fit to eat till the seeds are ripe, various expedients have been devised to transmit the pollen from the male flowers which lie near the opening or eye, to the female flowers which lie nearer the stalk. In Italy this is called caprification, and is done by insects; but in the neighbourhood of Paris, a very small quantity of oil is dropped on the eye of the fruit as soon as it has nearly attained its full size.
There are several species of Ficus, though none of them will bear the open air in England except the common kind; and only two produce eatable fruit; viz., F. Carica, and F. Sycamorus,—the Sycamore tree of Holy Writ, which produces its small roundish fruit in clusters on the trunk and old branches, and not on the young wood, as is always the case with the common fig.
The other most remarkable species are the Banyan tree (F. indica), the figs of which grow in pairs, and are about the size and colour of a cherry; and the branches of which send down roots, which soon become equal in size to the parent trunk, so that one tree soon becomes like a small forest; the Indian-rubber tree (F. elastica), the milky juice of which hardens into Caoutchouc, though this substance is also produced by other trees, particularly by the Brazilian tree Siphonia elastica; and the Pippul tree (F. religiosa). The leaves of this last tree are used in India for feeding silkworms, and it is said that this is one cause of the strong and wiry nature of the Indian silk; and the insect (Coccus ficus) feeds upon it and F. elastica, which produces the substance called lac, of which sealing-wax is made. This species takes its specific name of religiosa, from the legend that the Hindoo god Vishnoo was born under its branches.