Fig

The fig is the edible fruit of Ficus carica (the common fig), a species of tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, and to western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world. Ficus carica is the type species of the genus Ficus, which comprises over 800 tropical and subtropical plant species. The fig plant is a deciduous tree or large shrub, growing up to tall, with smooth white bark. Its large leaves have three to five deep lobes. Its fruit (a syconium) is teardrop-shaped, long, initially green but may ripen toward purple or brown, and has sweet soft reddish flesh containing numerous small seeds. In the Northern Hemisphere, fresh figs are in season from early August to early October. They tolerate moderate seasonal drought and can be grown even in hot-summer continental climates. In 2020, world production of raw figs was 1.26 million tonnes, led by Turkey (with 25% of the world total), Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria, collectively accounting for 62% of the total. Although the milky sap of the green parts of the plant is an irritant to human skin, figs can be eaten fresh or dried. They are also processed into jam, rolls, biscuits, and other types of desserts.…

The fig is the edible fruit of Ficus carica (the common fig), a species of tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, and to western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world. Ficus carica is the type species of the genus Ficus, which comprises over 800 tropical and subtropical plant species. The fig plant is a deciduous tree or large shrub, growing up to tall, with smooth white bark. Its large leaves have three to five deep lobes. Its fruit (a syconium) is teardrop-shaped, long, initially green but may ripen toward purple or brown, and has sweet soft reddish flesh containing numerous small seeds. In the Northern Hemisphere, fresh figs are in season from early August to early October. They tolerate moderate seasonal drought and can be grown even in hot-summer continental climates. In 2020, world production of raw figs was 1.26 million tonnes, led by Turkey (with 25% of the world total), Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria, collectively accounting for 62% of the total. Although the milky sap of the green parts of the plant is an irritant to human skin, figs can be eaten fresh or dried. They are also processed into jam, rolls, biscuits, and other types of desserts. Since ripe fresh figs are easily damaged in transport and do not keep well, most commercial production is in dried and processed forms. Raw figs contain roughly 80% water and 20% carbohydrates, with negligible protein, fat, and micronutrient content. They are a moderate source of dietary fiber. ==Description== Ficus carica is a gynodioecious, deciduous tree or large shrub that grows up to tall, with smooth white bark. Its fragrant leaves are some long and wide, rough, and deeply lobed (three or five lobes). The fig fruit develops as a hollow, fleshy structure called the syconium that is lined with numerous unisexual flowers. The tiny flowers bloom out of sight inside this structure. Although commonly called a fruit, the syconium is botanically an infructescence, containing multiple fruits. The small fig flowers and later small single-seeded (true) fruits line its interior surface. A small opening or ostiole, at the apex of the fruit, is a narrow passage that allows the specialized fig wasp, Blastophaga psenes, to enter and pollinate the flowers. Each fertilized ovule (one per flower, in its ovary) develops into a small, single-seeded fruit, (a drupelet). At maturity, these 'seeds' (single-seeded fruits) line the inside of the fig, a false fruit. The mature fig is long, with a green skin that sometimes ripens toward purple or brown. The tree has milky sap, produced by laticifer cells. ==Cultivation== ===Historical cultivation=== The edible fig is probably the first plant to have been cultivated by humans. Nine subfossil figs of a parthenocarpic (and therefore sterile) type dating to about 9400–9200 BC were found in the early Neolithic village Gilgal I (in the Jordan Valley, north of Jericho). The find precedes the domestication of wheat, barley, and legumes, 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). In ancient Israel, figs were a staple crop and widely cultivated for both fresh consumption and preservation. Archaeological evidence from sites such as Tel Beit Shemesh reveals that pressed figs were stored in jars. Fig trees thrived in the region's dry, rocky soil and yielded two annual harvests: an early crop eaten fresh, and a later summer crop (qayiṣ) that was dried or pressed into fig-cakes for preservation and travel. Fig trees are frequently mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and are depicted in the Lachish reliefs alongside grapevines and date palms, confirming their place in the cultivated landscape of Judah. Figs were widespread in ancient Greece, and their cultivation was described by both Aristotle and Theophrastus. 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); 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 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. Figs were also a common food source for the Romans. Cato the Elder, in his De Agri Cultura, lists several strains of figs grown at the time he wrote his handbook: the Mariscan, African, Herculanean, Saguntine, and the black Tellanian. The fruits were used, among other things, to fatten geese for the production of a precursor of foie gras. Rome's first emperor, Augustus, was reputed to have been poisoned with figs from his garden smeared with poison by his wife Livia. For this reason, or perhaps because of her horticultural expertise, a variety of fig known as the Liviana was cultivated in Roman gardens. It was cultivated from Afghanistan to Portugal, also grown in Pithoragarh in the Kumaon hills of India. From the 15th century onwards, it was grown in areas including Northern Europe and the New World. In 1769, Spanish missionaries led by Junipero Serra brought the first figs to California. The Mission variety, which they cultivated, is still popular. The Kadota cultivar is even older, being mentioned by the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder in the 1st century AD. Pliny recorded thirty varieties of figs. ===Overwintering=== People of the Italian diaspora 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. Italian immigrants to America in the 19th century introduced this common practice in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Toronto, where winters are normally too cold to leave the tree exposed. This practice consists in digging a trench that is appropriate to the size of the specimen, some of which are more than tall, severing part of the root system, and bending the specimen into the trench. Specimens are often wrapped in waterproof material to discourage the development of mold and fungus, then covered with a heavy layer of soil and leaves. Sometimes plywood or corrugated metal is placed on top to secure the tree. 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. ===Breeding=== While there are more naturally occurring varieties of figs than of any other tree crop, a formal fig breeding program was not developed until the beginning of the 20th century. 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. The work they had been doing was later continued at the University of California, Davis. That fig breeding program was closed in the 1980s. Insect and fungal disease pressure affecting both dried and fresh figs led James Doyle and Louise Ferguson to revive the breeding program in 1989 using the germplasm that Condit and Storey had established. Two varieties from Doyle and Ferguson's program are now in production in California: the public variety "Sierra", and the patented variety "Sequoia". ==Toxicity== Like other plant species in the family Moraceae, contact with the milky sap of F. carica followed by exposure to ultraviolet light can cause phytophotodermatitis, a potentially serious skin inflammation. Although the plant is not poisonous per se, F. carica is listed in the US Food and Drug Administration's database of poisonous plants. Furanocoumarins cause phytophotodermatitis in humans. The common fig contains significant quantities of two furanocoumarins, psoralen and bergapten. The essential oil of fig leaves contains more than 10% psoralen, the highest concentration of any organic compound isolated from fig leaves. Psoralen and bergapten are found in the milky sap of the leaves and shoots of F. carica but not the fruits. Neither psoralen nor bergapten was detected in the essential oil of fig fruits. ==Uses== ===Nutrition=== Raw figs are 79% water, 19% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contain negligible fat. They are a moderate source (14% of the Daily Value, DV) of dietary fiber and of food energy per 100-gram serving, and do not supply essential micronutrients in significant contents. When dehydrated to 30% water, figs have a carbohydrate content of 64%, protein content of 3%, and fat content of 1%. In a 100-gram serving, providing of food energy, dried figs are a rich source (more than 20% DV) of dietary fiber and the essential mineral manganese (26% DV), while calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and vitamin K are in moderate amounts. In fig fruits, the levels of glucose and fructose are nearly identical, with glucose slightly more prevalent overall, while the presence of sucrose is minimal. Still, in some varieties of figs, the fructose content can occasionally slightly surpass that of glucose. ==See also== Cursing of the fig tree Fig cake Fig sign Grocer's itch List of foods with religious symbolism ===Citations=== ===Sources===

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