Caprification

Caprification, a curious ancient custom of hanging the fig-branches of the so-called goat-fig or Caprificus on the normal blooming fig-trees which produce the edible figs. This device, apparently irrational, has the following explanation, which, though somewhat intricate, involves wider issues and has no little interest. On the goat-fig we find (1) male flowers, producing pollen, and (2) female flowers, which the eggs of a parasitic insect (Blastophaga) turn into galls. On the edible fig-tree we find normal female flowers which are not adapted to become galls. Their styles and stigmas are quite different from those of the female flowers on the goat-fig. Now, when the parasitic insects become mature and leave the galls of the female flowers on the goat-fig, they bear with them also the pollen from the male flowers of the same tree. They fly to the edible fig-tree, and there fertilise the normal female fig-flowers. The ancient custom is therefore very reasonable. The male and insect-containing female flowers of the wild-fig are hung on the edible fig-tree, that so the pollen of the male flowers may be carried by the liberated parasitic insects to fertilise the normal female flowers, and produce the proper figs. See Solms-Laubach, Herkunft und Domestikation des gewöhnlichen Feigenbaums (Göttingen, 1882); F. Ludwig, Biologisches Centralblatt, 1885, p. 564. Also CHALCIS, FIG, FLOWER, Vol. IV. p. 692.