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.