Herb. No. 212 · Moraceae
Fertile Crescent and Mediterranean; a pot tree or a wall tree north of that.
Native · West Asia · Mediterranean
Native Also grown
LegalGentleplant
Fig
Ficus carica
Fruit & vegetableHarvestCompanions
A Mediterranean hollow fruit that is not a fruit in the usual way — an inside-out flower you eat when it droops.
Fig is a West Asian and Mediterranean tree whose ‘fruit’ is a syconium, flowers inside a skin. Traditional use is as fresh and dried food. Culinary ripe figs are the path. The milky sap is a phototoxic latex for some hands. Many common figs set fruit without a wasp; Smyrna types need one. A closed-eye fig that weeps a drop of nectar is ready.
Flavor
Honey, berry, a little seed crunch. Dried is a different, louder sweetness.
Parts used
Ripe fruit
Helpful
- A small tree that can live in a pot
- Dries honestly
Cautions
- Sap burns some skin
- Birds and beetles
- A hard freeze takes the wood north