Fig
Scientific name: Ficus carica L.
Family name: Moraceae
MORPHOLOGY
Habit and dimensions: small deciduous tree, typically ranging from 3 to 5 meters in height. It has a short and contorted trunk with a flattened crown.
Bark: thin and greenish on younger branches. On older branches and the trunk, it is gray-ashen in color.
Leaves: alternate and palmately lobed. The lobes are unequal, deep, and oblong, while the margin is serrated. The upper surface is dark green and rough; the lower surface is lighter and pubescent.
Flowers: arranged in inflorescences. The species is dioecious: plants performing the male function are commonly called caprifigs and serve as a habitat for the pollinating insect of the species, Blastophaga psenes. Female plants do not host pollinators and are also called “edible figs”.
Fruits and seeds: syconia, with a hollow involucre containing an opening called an ostiole. The fruits of the caprifig are not edible, unlike those of female plants. In the latter, the syconium contains a large number of achenes, botanically speaking the true fruits, which bear the seeds. Both the caprifig and the edible fig can produce three fruitings per year, synchronous with the generations of the pollinating insect. In the edible fig, each fruiting yields three different types of syconia: brebas, which ripen at the end of spring, main crop figs, which ripen at the end of summer, and autumn figs, which ripen in late autumn.
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT
Native to the Mediterranean basin and Central Asia, widely cultivated throughout Italy in arid, well-drained, and sunny areas, up to 1000 meters in altitude. It adapts to any type of soil, especially loose and well-draining soils. It cannot tolerate prolonged temperatures below -10°C.
USE
The fruits are edible and can be consumed fresh or dried. They are rich in vitamin A and B, proteins, sugars, and minerals.
Leaves, buds, and young twigs have beneficial anti-inflammatory and digestive properties. Fig latex was traditionally used to coagulate milk in the production of artisanal cheeses.
INTERESTING FACTS
The specific epithet refers to the plant’s origins, which are traced back to Caria, a region of Asia Minor.
Photo: Under free license from Saxifraga-Jan van der Straaten and Willem van Kruijsbergen.
