Does a fig, tree have blossoms?
The word. yumicriy :Is rated as a slang expression and never used in the language of science. But it is a very suitable word to describe a fat and juicy, fragrant and flavorsome fig. Even a dried fig, with sweet, chewy meat and crunchy seeds is yummy. A soft, sweet. smelling, sweet tasting canned fig is also yummy, But a lush fig taken ripe from the tree is just about the yummiest bite in the world.
In the spring, most orchards are decked with lacy blossoms of shell pinks and pearly white. The petals fall, leaving tiny fruit which grow and ripen through the sunny summer. But a fig orchard is never decked in dainty blossoms. The ripe fig is called a fruit without a flower but this is not so. The fig we call a fruit is not really a fzuit at all. It is a fleshy sack lined with several hundred midget blossoms which become midget fruit and finally ripen into little round seeds.
Many kinds of fig trees were taken to California by the Spanish and some of them did very well. But a Smyrna fig, a favorite of Asia. Minor, was a great disappointment. The trees and the glossy leaves grew strong, but the baby fig fell off and refused to ripen. This called for an investigation and an amazing story was unf olded.
In the Old World, fig growers hang branches of wild figs on their orchard trees. The figs of this wild caprifig are small and worthless and no one understood why Smyrna figs refuse to ripen unless these little wild figs are near at hand. Then the hidden flowers of the Smyrna fig and the caprifig were investigated. Those in the caprifig are both male and female type flowers, those in the Smyrna fig are female type flowers only.
Pollen from the male type flowers must meet the female type flowers before the seeds can germinate, How is this done then when the blossoms are shut inside the fig? If you look you wall find a small opening at the end of the fig but this door is too small to trap blowing pollen. It was soon discovered that the fig has a little helper called the fig wasp.
The fig wasp lays her eggs inside the wild fig. Later she hatches, crawls through the tiny flowers and escapes outside with pollen dusted wings. She creeps inside a young, green Smyrna fig and finds it unsuitable for her eggs but some of the pollen rubs off on the female fig flowers. The Smyrna fig can ripen only with the help of the fig wasp which lives only in the wild caprifig.
Many types of fig are now grown in California and Texas, though not all of them need the fig wasp in order to ripen, Much of our big fig crop is dried, some is canned in rich syrup and some of the fragile ripe figs are carefully shipped in boxes. As a food, the fig is rare for it is both delicious and full of valuable nourishnrient.