What flower blooms inside its fruit?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

September 4, 2002

Also Sponsored By: AAA Fruit Baskets—>Click here

killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

Suggested Reading—>Click here.

Killer Picks: Passion Flower, Sweet Leaf Plant—>Click here.

The wild type fig is called the goat or caprifig and is the same species as the domesticated fig (Ficus carica Linnaeus). It is the centuries of selecting trees with the best fruit that have created numerous varieties. Only about 20 varieties are regularly cultivated for the market.

When John Gerard wrote in 1597 of the fig tree in his garden, he noted, "The fruit commeth out of the branches without any floure at all that ever
advertisement

Dwarf Fig Fruit Trees Smoky gray-green foliage adorns these 3-to 4 ft. plants. Evergreen foliage, sweetly scented flowers and edible fruit in one! Can be moved outdoors in summer, so the bees take care of pollination for you. Figs will bear within 2-4 years. Plump fruit is sweet and delectable for fresh eating, preserves, baking and drying. Click here - $20 off any order for $50 or more at Gurneys.com!

I could perceive, which fruit is in shape like unto Peares...." (The Herbal, 1633 ed.)

The fig tree does flower; it is monoecious bearing staminate (male) and pistillate (female) flowers in the inflorescences. The flowers are greatly reduced and hidden inside an urn-shaped receptacle. When the flowers are pollinated the receptacle becomes a syconium, a fused multiple fruit, the fig.

The caprifig must be pollinated for the fruit to set. The pollinator is the tiny female fig wasp (Blastophaga sp.) which enters the inflorescence through the ostiole, a small hole at the tip of the receptacle. The male fig wasp is wingless and lives his entire life within a fig. His only purpose is to mate with the female; he then dies remaining in the fig.

The female wasp leaves the fig she hatched in and flies to other figs to lay her eggs. The staminate or male flowers in the receptacle only mature when the female wasps have hatched. The female wasp will pick up the pollen from her home fig to carry to other developing figs.

The female wasp lays one egg per flower and only in certain short-styled female flowers within the fig. When she lays an egg, the female wasp releases hormones. The flowers with an egg are stimulated into odd growth becoming galls to provide extra food for the larvae.

Archivio Fotografico delle Immagini di Sardegna has excellent photographs of the fig taken by Paolo Sanna. To view the photographs, click on the link:

http://www.fotodisardegna.it/flora/f/fico.htm

Click on the individual images to enlarge. Note the ostiole at the tips of the figs in the third photograph.

killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

Passion Flower

Gurney Seed and Nursery®

Lush Twining Tendrils—According to legend, commemorates the Crucifixion--white flowers wearing a spiked crown of violet filaments. Needs a large pot, benefits from trellis supports. Click here to get $20 off your first order at Gurneys!

Sweet Leaf Plant

Gurney Seed and Nursery®

The Natural Sugar Substitute.—Glossy foliage just 10 inches tall, sprinkled with snowy flowers. Dried leaves are 300 times sweeter than sugar. Bring in for the winter. Click here to get $20 off your first order at Gurneys! [More Houseplants...]