Fig

The ancient fruit whose flowers hide inside

You can't see a fig's flowers — they're hidden inside the fruit! A tiny wasp (the fig wasp) crawls in to pollinate them. The fig is one of the first fruits people ever grew — 11,000 years ago! In Uzbekistan it grows in the warm south and gives two harvests a year. Dried figs replace sweets in winter. Its leaves are big, like a hand.

The fig (Ficus carica) of the mulberry family comes from the Mediterranean and South-West Asia; cultivated figs 11,400 years old were found in the Jordan Valley — older than wheat. The 'fruit' is a syconium: hundreds of tiny flowers inside a hollow receptacle, pollinated by the 2 mm fig wasp; wasp and fig cannot live without each other (coevolution), though many cultivated varieties are parthenocarpic and fruit without the wasp. In Uzbekistan it grows in Surkhandarya, Kashkadarya and Fergana; below −15 °C the bushes are buried for winter. Two harvests a year (June, August–September). Rich in potassium, calcium, fibre and antioxidants; dried figs are 50% sugar. Mentioned in the Quran and the Bible; athletes' food in ancient Greece.

Fun facts

• Figs were grown 11,400 years ago — before wheat.
• A fig's flowers are inside the fruit, pollinated by a 2 mm wasp.
• In Uzbekistan fig bushes are buried in winter to survive frost.