Page:Figs by Dahlgren, B. E. (Bror Eric).djvu/13

Rh still immature females, impregnate them and shortly die within the fig, as did the mother wasp.

Their sisters, the female wasps, are darker, of a brown color and winged. In due course they hatch and immediately set about leaving the cavity of the fig within which there is no room for them to spread their wings. To reach the orifice of the fig they must pass the male flowers and become dusted with the pollen that matures at the very time of their hatching and departure.

Once in the open air their wings soon dry and each young female wasp is off in search of an immature fig in which to deposit eggs. A suitable one found, the wasp proceeds to cut a notch in one of the outer scales for better access, then makes its way inside. In the process the wasp generally loses its wings. These are apt to stick in the opening, so that an inhabitated fig may be recognized by their presence. The pollen carried by the insect is brushed off on the stigmas of the long-styled flowers within. Eggs can be properly placed only in figs of the Caprificus kind, where gall flowers are present.

Both the wild and the cultivated fig usually bear three crops a year. As insects emerge from one crop of maturing Caprifigs they ordinarily find green fruit of the next crop ready to receive them. Each crop is thus pollinated with pollen of the preceding crop. An interval of about two months elapses between the entrance of the egg-laying fig wasp into the young fig and the emergence of her progeny from the ripe one. The same interval of time separates the receptive stage of the female fig flowers and the ripening of the pollen in the male flowers, completely excluding the possibility of self-pollination. The last of the fig wasps of the year deposit their eggs in young fruit which stays on the trees until spring.