Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..
Fig (Ficus carica)
Dear Readers, I hope that you will indulge my choice of ‘weed’ this week, for the Common Fig is no more a ‘weed’ than I am a nuclear scientist. Nonetheless, I pass this particular tree every week as I head into Muswell Hill for my breakfast, and I wanted to give it its moment in the sun. For one thing, I noticed that it actually has figs this year. For another, the leaves always remind me of classical statues that have been ‘censored’ to suit Victorian values. For yet another, I love ripe figs, although once you know how they’re pollinated you might want to avoid them if you’re averse to animal protein. So, welcome to the Wonderful World of Figs (and if that’s not a name for a plant-related theme-park I don’t know what is).
First things first. The fig is actually a member of the mulberry family, and is native to the Middle East and western Asia. It is a plant whose history is deeply interwoven with that of human beings: in the Christian tradition, Adam and Eve covered their genitalia with fig leaves after eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge. The Buddha became enlightened while sitting under the Bodhi Tree, which is a kind of fig. The fig is mentioned in the Quran, and the phrase from the Bible ‘each man under his own vine and fig tree’ was used to describe both the Jewish homeland and the land awaiting the American settlers. In short, the idea of figs as a symbol of plenty and of safety seems to be universal across the plant’s range.
Figs!
The fig tree is normally a plant of dry, hot climates and rocky areas, but has a deep, penetrating root system, and in the wild is often found beside streams and oases. The tree can grow to a huge size and its leaves form dense, delicious shade. A fig tree can live for 150 – 200 years, but there are some stories of trees living for over a thousand years. One rather fetching tree lives in the grounds of Clerkenwell Primary School on Amwell Street in Islington – it is at least 200 years old, and these days is propped up with great green metal supports.
The Amwell Fig
Although the Muswell Hill fig is producing fruit, the chance of them ripening in the UK is practically zero (at least until climate change bakes us all a little harder). I do love a ripe, juicy fig. However, the fruit of each species of fig is pollinated by a tiny fig wasp (Blastophaga psenes in many cases). The coevolution of fig and wasp is one of those examples of symbiosis that boggles the mind. First, a pregnant female wasp enters through a tiny hole at the base of the fruit. She pollinates some of the flowers that are inside the fruit, lays her eggs, and dies. Then the male wasps emerge first and leave their semen so that this inseminates the females who then emerge into the body of the fruit, but can get no further. Finally, the male wasps return and gnaw holes in the outside of the fruit so that the females can escape. In short, that tasty fig is both a love nest for lustful insects and a grave for the original female.
There are no fig wasps in the UK, because it’s too cold. On the other hand, the fruit doesn’t ripen. Life can be problematic sometimes.
Black Genoa Fig Tart, anybody? (Photo One)
Figs are also eaten by a very wide range of birds, mammals and insects throughout their range – in a New Scientist article it was estimated that over 1270 species will eat the fruit, which makes it important for biodiversity. Experiments with planting it in degraded forest areas in Thailand have shown that the animals that it attracts will also help with habitat restoration – birds and bats in particular will be ‘carrying’ other seeds that they will ‘plant’ in their droppings.
![Photo Three (Hornbill) By Lip kee (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lipkee/5110158240/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/bugwomanlondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/great_hornbill_eating_fig.jpg?resize=625%2C500&ssl=1)
Great Hornbill eating fig
![Photo Four (Barbet) by By J.M.Garg (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/bugwomanlondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lineated_barbet-_eating_goolar_fig_ficus_racemosa-_kolkata_img_5810.jpg?resize=625%2C469&ssl=1)
Lineated Barbet eating fig
![Photo Five (chimps) by By Alain Houle (Harvard University) [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/bugwomanlondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/adult_female_and_infant_wild_chimpanzees_feeding_on_ficus_sur.jpeg?resize=625%2C437&ssl=1)
Wild chimpanzee female and infant eating figs
Masaccio – The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (Painted 1426-28, Fig leaves added 1680, Fig leaves removed 1980) (Public Domain)
Here is a rather splendid depiction of Adam and Eve looking shifty in the Escorial Palace, Madrid. The fig leaves look a little as if they’ve been cut out of crepe paper, and their thighs indicate a little too much time riding uphill on a bicycle, but still.
Adam and Eve and the Serpent (Escorial Palace, Madrid) (Public Domain)
In the sculpture of the classical world, male genitalia were exposed for all the world to see (though women were generally more coy, with much drapery and the occasional pot plant). However, once Christianity arrived statues were often made more modest, especially during the reign of the ‘chaste’ popes – these fig leaves were added later, and were often made so that they could be removed.
A classical statue of Mercury with added fig leaf
By Medieval times, only the damned were shown nude. However, things reached a pretty pass during the Victorian era, when male nudity in particular was frowned upon, and Queen Victoria herself was said to have found the sight of a man with no clothes on distressing. What to do, then, with the blooming great plaster cast of Michaelangelo’s David that was in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London? The curators came up with the idea of a plaster fig leaf which could be hung from the cast on a very unanatomical pair of hooks, in the event of the monarch or some other female dignatory popping by for a dose of classical culture. In the event, it was never used, but you can still see it at the back of a case in the Cast Gallery should you ever visit.
The figleaf for the cast of the statue of Michaelangelo’s David. And very fine it is too. (Public Domain)
I cannot leave the subject of fig leaves without mentioning the first ‘muscleman’, Eugen Sandow, (1865-1925). He was not very ‘muscley’ by today’s standards (and all the better for it in my opinion) and he was also very influenced by the classical statues that he saw as a boy – he recorded their proportions and worked hard to copy their musculature. Some of his displays were based on the poses of these works of art, and I fear that, gorgeous as he was, it is difficult for a modern person to look at ‘The Dying Gaul’ without a) thinking that it looks most uncomfortable b) noticing the carefully positioned leaf and wondering if it was attached with Bluetack and c) (pedant alert) becoming indignant that this is not, in fact, a fig leaf but some kind of inferior foliage.
Eugen Sandow as ‘The Dying Gaul’
Now, when it comes to fig poems, there are several to choose from. There is ‘First Fig’ from Edna St Vincent Millay. I knew the poem, but didn’t know the title, and I am still a little thoughtful. All explanations and theories are welcome, as always.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–
It gives a lovely light!
And then there is D.H.Lawrence, havering on about what women should be like as usual. I loved Lawrence when I was a teenager, but have rather outgrown him, I fear. For anyone who wants to have a look, his poem Figs is here. I love the descriptions of the fruit, but the rest of it seems to me to be the maunderings of a deeply unhappy man.
As an antidote, here is a poem about the fig wasp, and about much else besides, by MTC Cronin, an Australian poet that I didn’t know, but will seek out in future. I like this one a lot. What do you think?
And finally, I really like this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, child of an American mother and a Palestinian father. It seems fitting to end with a work that talks about what a tree can mean to someone far from home, and also with a hopeful poem. Maybe we will all find home in the end.
Photo Credits
Photo One (The Amwell Fig) – From http://www.treetree.co.uk/fig.html
Photo Two (fig tart) by By Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia – Black Genoa Fig Tart, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29767335
Photo Three (Hornbill) By Lip kee (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lipkee/5110158240/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Four (Barbet) by By J.M.Garg (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Five (chimps) by By Alain Houle (Harvard University) [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Six (Eugen Sandow) by By G.dallorto – File:Falk, Benjamin J. (1853-1925) – Eugen Sandow (1867-1925)- 1894 .jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23255977
There are several fig trees in my neighborhood in Oregon, USA. About every other year they manage to ripen to delicious maturity. On my last foray to see if my favorite fig tree had ripe figs I found that the overgrown tree had been trimmed brutally, the hacked branches were lying on the ground. I gleaned a few figs from the fallen branches and experienced the most wonderful aroma. Coconut!. I went home and googled fig leaves and learned about fig leaf liqueur, cooking rice and salmon with fig leaves, and putting dried fig leaf powder into shortbread. Fig leaves…not just for covering body parts!
That’s a wonderful story, Lynn, though a terrible shame about the tree. Still, coconut ! I had no idea. It reminds me of the extraordinary smell of coconut that comes from gorse bushes when thecweather is warm. Such an unexpected pleasure….
What a delightful description of fig procreation! I have tried to write about it, but can not fit it into the limited space that my gardening column is allowed. Some of my figs happen to have grown from seed. We are always told to not eat the fruit of seed grown figs because they have the wasps inside (and the garden varieties do not because they are sterile). The wasps never bothered me. Figs ripen anyway, even without pollination. In a way, figs are more of an inflorescense or floral structure than a fruit, since the real fruit part of it never develops (maybe sort of like an inside out pineapple . . . or an outside in pineapple). I would not expect figs to ripen in London, not because of a lack of wasps, but because of a lack of warmth. They do very well in the Santa Clara Valley, but not so well only a few miles away on the coast. I have 14 stock plants growing in a cool place in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They make plenty of cuttings for other gardens, but the fruit is not good.
Hi Tony, thank you for commenting, and also for the information about fig ripening – this plant is even more interesting than I thought! I will update my post to include your information. I’m just off to have a look at your blog, the area that you live in sounds beautiful.
I don’t think that you should update it. It seems to be of the more accurate descriptions I have read. If it gets any more detailed, I would not be able to follow it.
I feel bad for Londoners. I live in Texas aka Hell, and figs pretty much grow on their own here. My tree is a Turkish fig tree, while our neighbors behind us have a tall yellow/tan or just plain brown fig. No one eats the fruit since the family doesn’t know what they are. The figs oozes nectar, are almost obscene when that happens, and are distinctly reminiscent of the alien’s dripping jaws in the movie Alien.
I have also read that fig tree wood is excellent for barbecuing. I prefer to sketch the lovely branches instead, and refuse to trim mine.
How does one grow figs from seeds???
Thanks for teaching me something new.
I don’t think that anyone intentionally grows figs from seed. It just happens. I do not even know how it happens, since the garden varieties of fig are sterile. Nonetheless, they sometimes appear. I do not believe that I would be presumptuous to assume that seedlings that appear underneath a garden variety fig that dropped a bit of unpicked fruit in previous years is related to the fruiting tree above. We are all taught to get rid of such seedlings, and to only grow new trees as copies from garden variety trees. Yet, it is difficult to get rid of them without at least trying the fruit. It is even more difficult to get rid of them if the fruit is good. That is why some of my trees were grown from seed. I do not care if there are dead wasps inside of the fruit. Wild figs that grow in the Sierra Nevada foothills are not sterile, and they make good fruit. No one complains.
Tony, you are a gardener after my own heart. If something pops up in my garden that is useful or beautiful I am inclined to let it stay, regardless of provenance….
Oh, I didn’t do it. The mother of two kids I grew up with did, and the trees worked out. They make such good figs that no one wants to complain about their questionable parentage. The trees are so popular that I got copies of them. I only grow them for those who know them. I can grow real cultivars for anyone else.
Hurray hurray for the word “havering” about old DHL. I share your feelings about him.
Interesting your thoughts on Victorian prudery …….. that obsession with privacy has provided very good cover for a variety of abusers over time, right up to all the modern scandals about priests and movie moguls ….. honesty is generally the best policy!
I couldn’t agree more, Brian.
Queen Victoria enjoyed sex but didn’t want others, namely commoners, to have as much fun as she and Albert seemed to have had. 😉 Covering chair legs took modesty to the extreme. Oh, the “stuff” I read and watch.
We were taught the fig leaf was chosen to cover Adam’s business because figs look, grow, and hang much like testicles. *grin* All those little seeds inside make it even more appropriate. My Turkish fig tree didn’t get the memo since its fruit is currently growing in clusters just as Brussels sprouts do. This is the first year they’ve done this, and it is also the first time the tree has fruited twice in a single year.
I have not seen a single wasp around our tree, but it produces as if by magic. Where do you learn all this amazing information? Thanks for every word and photograph.
Thank you, Limnerc! Tonytomeo has lots of very interesting info on figs, and he lives on your side of the ‘pond’. I suspect that figs will crop up as a subject of discussion again, because there is so much to this delightful plant. I am very envious of your fruiting figs, although a chap here in East Finchley has told me off for being so pessimistic about the fruiting of the trees in London and tells me that his allotment is full of them, so I shall have to have another look.
I think the Victorians had a kind of morbid fear of sex, and that the Brits, particularly the English, saw it as ‘naughty’ and were (are) altogether too juvenile about the whole subject. Oh for the sophistication of the French or the healthy openness of the Scandinavians, though no doubt someone will tell me that attitudes in these countries are not all that they are cracked up to be….
Fascinating fig facts!
I haven’t read your blog for a while (sorry!) but love this! I planted a ‘Brown Turkey’ fig in my very small garden about 15 years ago against a south facing wall. I have to hack it back on an almost annual basis but it shelters us from the gaze of our neighbours and gives about 10 or 15 ripe figs each year. I think you are supposed to remove the autumn unripe fruits (which won’t ripen due to winter) to make way for new fruits to grow in the spring which will ripen in summer. I tend to leave it to its own devices a bit as I’m never sure if I have that the right way round (!) but the ripe figs are lovely and I can also confirm the fabulous coconutty flavour of fig leaf liquer, having made it for the first time last year!
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