Ficus carica is an Asian species of flowering plant (Opens in a new window) in the mulberry family (Opens in a new window), known as the common fig. It is the source of the fruit also called the fig and as such is an important crop in those areas where it is grown commercially. Native (Opens in a new window) to the Mediterranean (Opens in a new window) and western Asia (Opens in a new window), it has been sought out and cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant (Opens in a new window).[3] (Opens in a new window)[4] (Opens in a new window) The species has become naturalized in scattered locations in Asia and North America.
Etymology[edit (Opens in a new window)]
The word fig, first recorded in English in the 13th century, derives from (Old) French figue, itself from Occitan (Provençal) figa, from Romance *fica, from Classical Latin (Opens in a new window) ficus (fig or fig-tree).[7] (Opens in a new window) Italian has fico, directly derived from Latin ficus. The name of the caprifig, Ficus caprificus Risso, is derived both from Latin capro (billygoat (Opens in a new window)) and English fig.[8] (Opens in a new window)
Biology[edit (Opens in a new window)]
Description[edit (Opens in a new window)]
Ficus carica is a gynodioecious (Opens in a new window), deciduous (Opens in a new window) tree (Opens in a new window) or large shrub (Opens in a new window) that grows up to 7–10 metres (23–33 ft) tall, with smooth white bark (Opens in a new window). Its fragrant leaves are 12–25 centimetres (4.7–9.8 in) long and 10–18 centimetres (3.9–7.1 in) wide, and are deeply lobed (three or five lobes).
The fig fruit develops as a hollow, fleshy structure called the syconium (Opens in a new window) that is lined internally with numerous unisexual (Opens in a new window) flowers. The tiny flowers bloom inside this cup-like structure. Although commonly called a fruit, the syconium is botanically an infructescence (Opens in a new window), a type of multiple fruit (Opens in a new window). The small fig flowers and later small single-seeded (true) fruits line its interior surface. A small opening or ostiole (Opens in a new window), visible on the middle of the fruit, is a narrow passage that allows the specialized fig wasp (Opens in a new window), Blastophaga psenes (Opens in a new window) to enter the inflorescence and pollinate the flowers, after which each fertilized ovule (Opens in a new window) (one per flower, in its ovary (Opens in a new window)) develops into a seed. At maturity, these 'seeds' (actually single-seeded fruits) line the inside of each fig. See Ficus: Fig fruit and reproduction system (Opens in a new window).
The edible mature syconium (Opens in a new window) stem develops into a fleshy false fruit (Opens in a new window) bearing the numerous one-seeded fruits, which are technically druplets (Opens in a new window).[9] (Opens in a new window) The whole fig fruit is 3–5 centimetres (1.2–2.0 in) long, with a green skin that sometimes ripens toward purple or brown. Ficus carica has milky sap, produced by laticifer (Opens in a new window) cells. The sap (Opens in a new window) of the green parts is an irritant (Opens in a new window) to human skin.[10] (Opens in a new window)
Habitat[edit (Opens in a new window)]
Mountain fig tree in Zibad (Opens in a new window)
The common fig tree has been cultivated since ancient times (Opens in a new window) and grows wild in dry and sunny locations with deep and fresh soil, and in rocky locations that are at sea level to 1,700 metres in elevation. It prefers relatively porous and freely draining soil, and can grow in nutritionally poor soil. Unlike other fig species, Ficus carica does not always require pollination by a wasp or from another tree,[11] (Opens in a new window)[12] (Opens in a new window) but can be pollinated by the fig wasp (Opens in a new window), Blastophaga psenes (Opens in a new window) to produce seeds. Fig wasps are not present to pollinate in colder nations, e. g. the United Kingdom (Opens in a new window).[13] (Opens in a new window)
Leaves and immature fruit
Figs in various stages of ripening
The plant tolerates seasonal (Opens in a new window) drought, and the Middle Eastern (Opens in a new window) and Mediterranean climates (Opens in a new window) are especially suitable to it. Situated in a favorable habitat, mature specimens can grow to considerable size as large, dense, shade trees. Its aggressive root system precludes its cultivation in many urban locations, yet in nature this characteristic helps the plant to root in the most inhospitable locations. Having a great need of water, it is mostly a phreatophyte (Opens in a new window) that extracts the needed water from sources in or on the ground. Consequently, it frequently grows in locations with standing or running water, e. g. in valleys of rivers and in ravines that collect water. The deeply rooted (Opens in a new window) plant (Opens in a new window)searches for groundwater (Opens in a new window) in aquifers (Opens in a new window), ravines (Opens in a new window), or cracks in rocks. With access to this water, the tree cools the hot environments in which it grows, thus producing fresh and pleasant habitat for many animals that shelter in its shade during periods of intense heat.
The mountain or rock fig ("Anjeer Kohi", انجیر کوهی, in Persian (Opens in a new window)) is a wild variety, tolerant of cold dry climates, of the semi-arid rocky montane regions of Iran (Opens in a new window), especially in the Kohestan Mountains of Khorasan (Opens in a new window).[10] (Opens in a new window)
Ecology[edit (Opens in a new window)]
Ficus carica is dispersed by birds and mammals that scatter their seeds in droppings. Fig fruit is an important food source for much of the fauna in some areas, and the tree owes its expansion to those that feed on its fruit. The common fig tree also sprouts from the root and stolon tissues.
The infructescence (Opens in a new window) is pollinated (Opens in a new window) by a symbiosis (Opens in a new window) with a fig wasp (Opens in a new window) (Blastophaga psenes (Opens in a new window)). The fertilized female wasp enters the fig through the scion (Opens in a new window), which has a tiny hole in the crown (the ostiole). She crawls on the inflorescence (Opens in a new window) inside the fig and pollinates some of the female flowers. She lays her eggs inside some of the flowers and dies. After weeks of development in their galls (Opens in a new window), the male wasps emerge before the females wasps do through holes they produce by chewing the galls. The male wasps then fertilize the female wasps by depositing semen in the hole in the gall. The male wasps later return to the remaining female wasps and enlarge the holes to enable the female wasps to emerge. Then some males enlarge holes in the scion, which enables the female wasps to disperse after collecting pollen from the developed male flowers. Female wasps now have a short time (<48 hours) to find another fig tree with receptive scions to spread the pollen, assist the tree in reproduction, and lay their own eggs to start a new cycle.[13] (Opens in a new window)
Cultivation[edit (Opens in a new window)]
From ancient times[edit (Opens in a new window)]
"Schiocca": Calabrian (Opens in a new window) dried figs
Further information: Domestication of Ficus carica (Opens in a new window)
The edible fig is one of the first plants that were cultivated by humans. Nine subfossil (Opens in a new window) figs of a parthenocarpic (Opens in a new window) (and therefore sterile) type dating to about 9400–9200 BC were found in the early Neolithic (Opens in a new window) village Gilgal I (Opens in a new window) (in the Jordan Valley (Opens in a new window), 13 km north of Jericho). The find precedes the domestication of wheat (Opens in a new window), barley (Opens in a new window), and legumes (Opens in a new window), and may thus be the first known instance of agriculture. It is proposed that this sterile but desirable type was planted and cultivated intentionally, one thousand years before the next crops were domesticated (wheat and rye (Opens in a new window)).[14] (Opens in a new window)
Figs were widespread in ancient Greece (Opens in a new window), and their cultivation was described by both Aristotle (Opens in a new window) and Theophrastus (Opens in a new window). Aristotle noted that as in animal sexes, figs have individuals of two kinds, one (the cultivated fig) that bears fruit, and one (the wild caprifig) that assists the other to bear fruit. Further, Aristotle recorded that the fruits of the wild fig contain psenes (fig wasps (Opens in a new window)); these begin life as larvae, and the adult psen splits its "skin" (pupa) and flies out of the fig to find and enter a cultivated fig, saving it from dropping. Theophrastus observed that just as date palms (Opens in a new window) have male and female flowers, and that farmers (from the East) help by scattering "dust" from the male onto the female, and as a male fish releases his milt over the female's eggs, so Greek farmers tie wild figs to cultivated trees. They do not say directly that figs reproduce sexually, however.[15] (Opens in a new window)
Figs were also a common food source for the Romans (Opens in a new window). Cato the Elder (Opens in a new window), in his c. 160 BC De Agri Cultura (Opens in a new window), lists several strains of figs grown at the time he wrote his handbook: the Mariscan, African, Herculanean, Saguntine, and the black Tellanian (De agri cultura, ch. 8). The fruits were used, among other things, to fatten geese for the production of a precursor of foie gras (Opens in a new window). Rome's first emperor (Opens in a new window), Augustus (Opens in a new window), was reputed to have been poisoned with figs from his garden smeared with poison by his wife Livia (Opens in a new window).[16] (Opens in a new window)[17] (Opens in a new window) For this reason, or perhaps because of her horticultural expertise, a variety of fig known as the Liviana was cultivated in Roman gardens.[18] (Opens in a new window)
It was cultivated from Afghanistan (Opens in a new window) to Portugal (Opens in a new window), also grown in Pithoragarh (Opens in a new window) in the Kumaon (Opens in a new window) hills of India (Opens in a new window). From the 15th century onwards, it was grown in areas including Northern Europe (Opens in a new window) and the New World (Opens in a new window).[3] (Opens in a new window) In the 16th century, Cardinal Reginald Pole (Opens in a new window) introduced fig trees to Lambeth Palace (Opens in a new window) in London.
In 1769, Spanish missionaries led by Junipero Serra (Opens in a new window) brought the first figs to California. The Mission (Opens in a new window) variety, which they cultivated, is still popular.[19] (Opens in a new window) The fact that it is parthenocarpic (Opens in a new window) (self-pollinating) made it an ideal cultivar for introduction.
The Kadota cultivar (Opens in a new window) is even older, being mentioned by the Roman naturalist Pliny in the 1st century A.D.[20] (Opens in a new window)
Overwintering[edit (Opens in a new window)]
People of the Italian diaspora (Opens in a new window) who live in cold-winter climates have the practice of burying imported fig trees to overwinter them and protect the fruiting hard wood from cold.[21] (Opens in a new window) Italian immigrants in the 19th century introduced this common practice in cities such as New York (Opens in a new window), Philadelphia (Opens in a new window), Boston (Opens in a new window), and Toronto (Opens in a new window), where winters are normally too cold to leave the tree exposed.[22] (Opens in a new window) This practice consists in digging a trench that is appropriate to the size of the specimen, some of which are more than 10 feet tall, severing part of the root system, and bending the specimen into the trench. Specimens are often wrapped in waterproof material to discourage development of mould (Opens in a new window) and fungus (Opens in a new window), then covered with a heavy layer of soil and leaves. Sometimes plywood or corrugated metal is placed on top to secure the tree.[23] (Opens in a new window) In borderline climates like New York City burying trees is no longer needed because low winter temperatures have increased. Often specimens are simply wrapped in plastic and other insulating material, or not protected if planted in a sheltered site against a wall that absorbs sunlight.[22] (Opens in a new window)
Modern[edit (Opens in a new window)]
Variegated fig
Fresh figs
The common fig is grown for its edible fruit (Opens in a new window) throughout the temperate (Opens in a new window) world. It is also grown as an ornamental tree, and in the UK (Opens in a new window) the cultivars (Opens in a new window) 'Brown Turkey'[24] (Opens in a new window) and ‘Ice Crystal’ (mainly grown for its unusual foliage)[25] (Opens in a new window) have gained the Royal Horticultural Society (Opens in a new window)'s Award of Garden Merit (Opens in a new window).[26] (Opens in a new window)
Figs are also grown in Germany (Opens in a new window), mainly in private gardens inside built up areas. There is no commercial fig growing.[27] (Opens in a new window) The Palatine region (Opens in a new window) in the German South West has an estimated 80,000 fig trees. The variety Brown Turkey is the most widespread in the region.[28] (Opens in a new window) There are about a dozen quite widespread varieties hardy enough to survive winter outdoors mostly without special protection. There are even two local varieties, "Martinsfeige" and "Lussheim", which may be the hardiest varieties in the region.[29] (Opens in a new window)
As the population of California (Opens in a new window) grew, especially after the gold rush (Opens in a new window), a number of other cultivars were brought there by persons and nurserymen from the east coast of the US and from France and England. By the end of the 19th century, it became apparent that California had the potential for being an ideal fig producing state because of its Mediterranean-like climate and latitude of 38 degrees, lining up San Francisco (Opens in a new window) with Smyrna (Opens in a new window), Turkey. G. P. Rixford first brought true Smyrna figs to California in 1880. The most popular cultivar of Smyrna-type fig is Calimyrna, being a name that combines "California" and "Smyrna". The cultivar, however, is not one that was produced by a breeding program, and instead is from one of the cuttings brought to California in the latter part of the 19th century. It is identical to the cultivar Lob Injir that has been grown in Turkey for centuries.[20] (Opens in a new window)
Figs can be found in continental climates (Opens in a new window) with hot summers as far north as Hungary (Opens in a new window) and Moravia (Opens in a new window). Thousands of cultivars (Opens in a new window), most named, have been developed as human migration brought the fig to many places outside its natural range. Fig plants can be propagated (Opens in a new window) by seed or by vegetative (Opens in a new window) methods. Vegetative propagation is quicker and more reliable, as it does not yield the inedible caprifigs. Seeds germinate readily in moist conditions and grow rapidly once established. For vegetative propagation, shoots with buds can be planted in well-watered soil in the spring or summer, or a branch can be scratched to expose the bast (inner bark) and pinned to the ground to allow roots to develop.[30] (Opens in a new window)
Two crops of figs can be produced each year.[31] (Opens in a new window) The first or breba (Opens in a new window) crop develops in the spring on last year's shoot growth. The main fig crop develops on the current year's shoot growth and ripens in the late summer or fall. The main crop is generally superior in quantity and quality, but some cultivars such as 'Black Mission', 'Croisic', and 'Ventura' produce good breba crops.
There are three types of edible figs:[32] (Opens in a new window)
Persistent (or common) figs have all female flowers that do not need pollination for fruiting; the fruit can develop through parthenocarpic (Opens in a new window) means. This is a popular horticulture fig for home gardeners. Dottato (Kadota), Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Brunswick, and Celeste are some representative cultivars.
Caducous (or Smyrna) figs require cross pollination by the fig wasp (Opens in a new window) with pollen from caprifigs (Opens in a new window) for the fruit to mature. If not pollinated the immature fruits drop. Some cultivars are Marabout, Inchàrio, and Zidi.
Intermediate (or San Pedro) figs set an unpollinated breba crop but need pollination for the later main crop. Examples are Lampeira, King, and San Pedro.
There are dozens of fig cultivars, including main and breba cropping varieties, and an edible caprifig (the Croisic). Varieties are often local, found in a single region of one country.[31] (Opens in a new window)[33] (Opens in a new window)
Breeding[edit (Opens in a new window)]
While the fig contains more naturally occurring varieties than any other tree crop, a formal breeding program was not developed until the beginning of the 20th century.[34] (Opens in a new window) Ira Condit, "High Priest of the Fig," and William Storey tested some thousands of fig seedlings in the early 20th century based at University of California, Riverside (Opens in a new window).[33] (Opens in a new window) It was then continued at the University of California, Davis (Opens in a new window). However, the fig breeding program was ultimately closed in the 1980s.[34] (Opens in a new window)
Due to insect and fungal disease pressure in both dried and fresh figs, the breeding program was revived in 1989 by James Doyle and Louise Ferguson using the germplasm (Opens in a new window) established at UC Riverside by Ira Condit and William Storey. Crosses were made and two new varieties are now in production in California: the public variety "Sierra", and the patented variety "Sequoia".[35] (Opens in a new window)