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CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION

..................................................................................................................323

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

......................................................................................................325

VARIETIES OF THE CAPRIFIG TYPE

..............................................................................326Suggestive Key for Identification of California Caprifigs,Profichi Crop.........................................................................................................................327Caprifigs with Interior Violet or Purple; Skin Green......................................................328Caprifigs with Interior Violet or Purple; Skin Green, Tinged withDarker Shades of Brown or Violet....................................................................................332Caprifigs with Interior White; Skin Green........................................................................335Caprifigs with Interior White; Skin Brown or Purplish..................................................339Miscellaneous Caprifigs; Interior Color not Determined...............................................340

VARIETIES OF THE SMYRNA TYPE

...............................................................................342Smyrna-type Figs with Skin Green or Yellow; Pulp White,Amber, or Very Light Red.................................................................................................343Smyrna-type Figs with Skin Green or Yellow; Pulp VariousShades of Red......................................................................................................................345Smyrna-type Figs with Skin Dark (Various Shades of Violetto Black); Pulp White or Amber.......................................................................................354Smyrna-type Figs with Skin Dark (Various Shades of Red, Brownor Violet to Black); Pulp Various Shades of Red............................................................354Smyrna-type Figs lacking Complete Descriptions..........................................................359

VARIETIES OF THE SAN PEDRO TYPE

.........................................................................359San Pedro-type Figs with Skin Green; Pulp Red.............................................................360San Pedro-type Figs with Skin Bronze or Violet Pulp Amber orRed........................................................................................................................................364

VARIETIES OF THE COMMON TYPE

.............................................................................369Suggestive Key for Identification of Common type Figs atRiverside, California...........................................................................................................370Figs with Skin Green or Yellow, Pulp Amber orWhite.....................................................................................................................................372Common-type Figs with Skin Green or Yellow; Pulp VariousShades of Red.......................................................................................................................381Common-type Figs with Skin Green or Yellow; Pulp Color notDesignated............................................................................................................................411Common-type Figs with Skin Dark (Various Shades of Red,Brown, or Violet to Black); Pulp White or Amber..........................................................414Common-type Figs with skin Dark (Various Shades of Red,Brown, or Violet to Black); Pulp Various Shades of Red...............................................420Common-type Figs with Skin Dark (Various Shades of Red,Brown, or Violet to Black); Pulp Color not Designated.................................................477Common-type Varieties not Classified as to Color..........................................................479

INDEXED ALPHABETICAL LIST OF FIG VARIETIES

.................................................481

LITERATURE CITED

.............................................................................................................497

PLATES

......................................................................................................................................511

 

 

HILGARDIA

 

 A Journal of Agricultural Science Published bythe California Agricultural Experiment Station

 _____________________________________________________________________________________________  ___________ 

VOL. 23 FEBRUARY, 1955No. 11

 _____________________________________________________________________________________________  ___________ 

FIG VARIETIES: A MONOGRAPH

1, 2

IRA J. CONDIT

3

 INTRODUCTION

 THE COMMON FIG occurs in a great number of varieties, which have evolved mainlyas natural seedlings during the many centuries in which this fruit has been undercultivation. As early as the fourth century B.C., Theophrastus (1916)

4

reported that mostgood fruits, including the fig, had received names. Ulysses, the hero of the Odyssey,obtained from his father twenty fig trees, all with names. In the first century of theChristian Era, Pliny (1855) listed twenty-nine varieties, with the localities in which theywere grown, and quoted Cato, who also had given names to several varieties. Plinyfurther stated: “Since his [Cato’s] day there have been so many names and kinds comeup, that even on taking this subject into consideration, it must be apparent to everyonehow great are the changes which have taken place in civilized life.”Various authorities maintain that certain figs now being grown in Italy are directlydescended by asexual propagation from the clonal varieties listed by Pliny, and aretherefore identical with them. Barnissotte, for example, is referred by Gallesio to “FicoAfricano” of Roman times. The Mission (Franciscana) fig of California, which wasintroduced into the New World over four hundred years ago by the Spanish explorers,had undoubtedly been previously propagated in southern Spain for many centuries.Pliny listed names of figs and gave the color of mature fruits, but did not describevarieties in detail. Porta, in his

Pomarium

of 1583 and his subsequent much larger workof 1592, did little more than list varieties of that period, but he gave citations to previousauthorities on synonymy. Beginning with Aldrovandi in 1668, and more specificallywith Cupani in 1696, the accounts were sufficiently detailed to enable later writers tocompare characters and to identify varieties with more or less certainty. Subsequentaccounts or descriptions of fig varieties are numerous as shown in the appendedbibliography. Many have been purposely omitted from this monograph because the ____________ 

1 Received for publication March 4, 1954.2 Paper No. 829, University of California Citrus Experiment Station, Riverside, California.3 Professor of Subtropical Horticulture, Emeritus, and Subtropical Horticulturist, Emeritus, in theExperiment Station.4 See “Literature Cited” for citations, referred to in the text by author and date.

[ 323 ]

 

 324

Hilgardia

 [Vol. 23, No. 11

descriptions were very evidently not based on personal studies, but had been copiedfrom previous authorities. Too often, we find, writers copied verbatim, but failed tomention the source of their information or to give credit to other authors.This is not the first attempt to publish a monograph of fig varieties. A writer inRevue Horticole (1865, p.31) told about an Italian, Suffren de Salerne, who had prepareda monograph covering the descriptions and illustrations of 360 varieties. Apparentlythe publication never got beyond the manuscript stage. Various authors call attentionto a compilation by Geny (1867) entitled “Les figuiers spontanés et cultivés dans lesAlpes Maritimes, Nice.” According to Eisen, this unpublished manuscript, whichconsisted of colored plates without text, could not be located for his study in 1901.Several accounts of fig varieties are excellent and detailed; examples are Vallese (1909),Mann (1939), and Simonet et al. (1945). These deal mostly with restricted localities, andare not monographic in character.Probably the most complete publication is that of Eisen (1901), in which there weredescribed or listed some 348 common figs, 10 Smyrna figs, and 19 caprifigs. Students offig varieties have cause for regret that Dr. Eisen could not have been more specific as towhich crop he was considering in his descriptive notes, and that he failed in most casesto state the locality in which the specimens were grown. Obviously, much has beenpublished in the ensuing fifty years, and horticulturists are enabled to study thebehavior of varieties under widely separated and varied climatic conditions.Citations to early nursery catalogues in the United States are not included. Perusal ofseveral such catalogues by H. R. Fulton, United States Department of Agriculture,shows that from 1771 to 1866, trees of numerous fig varieties were offered for sale atprices ranging from fifty cents to one dollar each. Prominent among these nurserieswere the following: William R. Prince, Parsons and Co., and Stephen F. Mills, all ofFlushing, Long Island; John Bartram and Son, Philadelphia; William Kenrick, Newton,Massachusetts; Hovey and Co., Boston; and Ellwanger and Barry, Rochester.This monograph of fig varieties is based upon personal observations and studiesextending over a period of more than thirty years, mostly in California, but alsoincluding notes taken during visits to France, Algeria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, andPortugal. A few standard varieties were found growing even in Japan and China whenthe author traveled in those countries in 1934—1935. Much has been learned from theso-called Chiswick collection of figs, grown in four distinct localities of California.Introduced in 1894 by the United States Department of Agriculture from the RoyalHorticultural Society of England, scions of each variety (some sixty-six in all) weresuccessfully grafted on trees in the orchard of the California Nursery Company atNiles.A prized possession of the library of the University of California Citrus ExperimentStation at Riverside, is the record book containing penciled notes as well as outlinedrawings made by John Rock and Gustav Eisen of these figs as grown at Niles and atBiggs. Subsequently, the collection was transferred to the United States PlantIntroduction Garden, near Chico, where the author made notes on the varieties in 1916,1918, and 1921. Cuttings of most of the varieties were established in a plot at Fresno in