This process must be practiced wherever the Smyrna figs are grown, for
without it they will not mature either seeds or figs. The flowers of the
Smyrna figs are all pistillate and require pollination, which in the
case of these varieties can be effected on a large scale only through
caprification. The process consists in the suspension of wild caprifigs,
which possess staminate and gall flowers, in the Smyrna fig trees, when
the pistils in the blossoms of the latter are in a receptive condition.
A minute wasp, the _Blastophaga_, breeds in the caprifig in large
numbers, and on leaving it crawls into the Smyrna fig, covered with the
pollen of the caprifig. This pollen, transferred by contact from the
body of the wasp to the receptive stigmas of the flowers in the Smyrna
figs, effects the fertilization of the ovules of those flowers and
causes them to form seeds and mature the fruit of which they are a part.
These seeds impart a nutty aroma and flavor to the fig when dried, and
give it a marked superiority to our common figs. Caprification is not
yet practiced in the United States, the wasp not existing here, though
both it and some of the Smyrna figs have been brought to this country
several times. The first importation of Smyrna fig trees was made by
Gulian P. Rixford, about 1880, when three varieties of Smyrna figs and a
single caprifig tree were introduced.