Friends of Silver Falls Native Plant Illustration Project- Getting started!
This is the second blog in a series I’m writing about a large native plant illustration commission I received from the Friends of Silver Falls State Park (FOSF). To read the first blog click here.
Detail of Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, from my older sketchbook.
Tús maith, leath na hoibre, A good start is half the work!
Irish Proverb
When I first received this commission I was very excited: so many wonderful species and so much potential for good work, but my head began to spin when I thought about the scale of the job ahead of me (thirty native plant species). I realized immediately that the project would involve many comprehensive studies of the different growing stages of each plant. I knew too that if I wanted to do a good job I needed a good plan. But by the time the project finally started it was June and Oregon was beginning to experience its worst drought on record. I could feel the panic rising as I watched many of the native species on the list wither before my eyes. To calm my nerves I focused on the art materials I’d need, starting with the right sketchbook. I had already begun to make my own for other projects and knew I would do the same for this one but I wasn’t sure what page dimensions to use.
Finding the right sketchbook!
Study of Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, from my older homemade sketchbook.
Feeling the panic nipping at my heels I began drawing Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, (in bloom in my own garden at the time). I used a homemade sketchbook I already had – made from Fabriano Artistico Extra White Watercolor Paper. I realized very quickly, however, that the pages were too small. I love the brightness and versatility of this paper, which I use for graphite as well as watercolor studies, but I needed bigger pages.
Making my own sketchbooks for the project.
Luckily my local art store had a sale in Fabriano Artistico Extra White (140 lb, 300 gsm) at the time. I bought 22×30 inch (559 x 762 mm) sheets and divided each one into four x 11×15 inch (279 x 381 mm) pages. I then had them spiral bound into sketchbooks of 12 pages at my local printer. I thought, rather than having one large sketchbook, dividing the pages up like this would make it easier to manage- and safer. Damage or loss of my sketchbook would be a real setback- especially if all my plant studies were in one. By splitting up the pages this way the sketchbook is lighter too and more manageable. I can study about 10 plants per sketchbook and when full move onto the next.
My first FOSF sketchbook of 12, spiral bound pages. The cover (printed on my Epson printer) shows a pen and ink illustration of Western tiger lily, Lilium columbium, created previously. It is one of the native plants on my project list (shown below).
Friends of Silver Falls Native Plant list included it in the sketchbook.
The finished botanical illustrations.
The finished botanical illustrations will be reproduced on 11×16 inch (279 x 406 mm) sheets (similar to an herbarium specimen sheet) so my sketchbook page dimensions, at 11×15 inches (279 x 381 mm), help me visualize how much plant information can fit onto that size sheet. I’ve already begun using my first sketchbook and it’s working well so far. The only change I will make to the second and third will be to insert lighter tracing paper sheets between the watercolor pages so that I can protect them better. I’ve made a tús maith (good start) I think. I will let you know how the “other half” of the project goes in due course.
Aislinn Adams
Blog #2 Friends of Silver Falls State Park Native Plant Illustration Project.
The Oregon Fawn Lily, Erythronium oregonum and its many names.
© 2011 Aislinn Adams
Oregon Fawn Lily, Erythronium oregonum.
The Fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum, and its many common names.
Erythronium oregonum has many common names- giant white fawn lily, Oregon fawn lily, dog’s tooth violet, trout lily, adder’s tongue, lamb’s tongue. Maybe this is why the Historic Deepwood Estate here in Salem, Oregon- where I live- has chosen the scientific name for their annual spring native plant festival. Not wishing to confuse people with a common name that is not “common” to all, they use the scientific name Erythronium (pronounced, err- ih-throne- ee-um.) Personally I find it much more useful to use the scientific name for the same reason. Never underestimate the creativity of humans to come up with interesting and numerous common names for one plant, and though they are lovely, ultimately they are rather confusing, especially when trying to communicate which plant you mean to someone.
My first fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum.
Erythronium oregonum was one of the first bulbs I planted in my own garden when I moved to Oregon many years ago. It has since seeded itself throughout my front yard, totally ignoring all my efforts to corral this charming spring bloomer into an attractive sweep of creamy yellow. It was one of these flowers that I used for my botanical illustration above, and inspired me to create my Pacific Northwest Native Plant Greeting Card Series.
The fawn lily and early plant explorers.
When I first saw this beautiful fawn lily here in the Willamette Valley I assumed it must have been collected by Lewis and Clark or David Douglas in the early 19th century. This is not the case. The first fawn lily to be described from this part of the world, pink fawn lily, Erythronium revolutum, was collected by Archibald Menzies in 1793 and described by James Edward Smith in 1809. Then in 1806 the fawn lily’s mountain “cousin” the glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, was brought back by Lewis and Clark (Lewis called it a dog’s tooth violet in his journal) and described by Frederick Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis in 1814. (for more on the collection see my blog The saga of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and the Irish nurseryman Bernard McMahon’s unwitting role in its fate!.) The glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, also has other common names including yellow fawn lily and yellow avalanche lily.
The common fawn lily, Erythronium oregonoum, erroneously mis-identified.
It wasn’t until 1935 that the more common fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum, was finally described by the Oregon botanist, Elmer Applegate. As is often the case with plant exploration and identification, the story is not that straightforward. According to Applegate “for nearly a century this familiar plant has been known erroneously as Erythronium giganteum Lindl. or as Erythronium grandiflorum var. albiflorum.” ( Kalmiopsis Vol. 10 2003. Native Plant Society of Oregon.) So maybe my assumption wasn’t so far off the mark. Is it possible that some of the Erythronium grandiflorum bulbs collected by Douglas (April, 1826 and 1827) may have been Erythronium oregonum after all?
Elmer Applegate and David Douglas.
There is a tenuous link of a different kind between Applegate and Douglas. Applegate’s wife Esther Emily Ogden was a niece of Peter Skene Ogden (the well-known fur trader and chief trader with the Hudson’s Bay Company.) Douglas met Ogden August 30, 1826 at Fort Vancouver, Washington, directly after Douglas’ exciting 12-day descent of the Columbia River from Fort Colville in eastern Washington. During that descent he had a lucky escape when his canoe was wrecked at the Dalles; causing him to loose the insects he had collected in the interior and some seeds, but he managed to save bulbs of the glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, collected in the Fort Colville area. In April the following year, while on his journey overland to Hudson Bay to meet his ship bound for England, he collected more of the glacier lily in the same area and transplanted them in the hope of keeping them growing all the way to England. Maybe it was these particular transplants that were the first fawn lilies that he is credited with introducing into England. Now I wonder if they were all glacier lilies: if some of the Oregon fawn lilies had not been introduced into the mix also?
When I drive by the Deepwood Estate along Mission Road here in Salem and see the expanse of pale yellow that is the fawn lily, it’s hard to imagine that Douglas didn’t see them while traveling though the Willamette Valley. At any rate, it is a wonderful sight to see and, no doubt, it will be enjoyed by the many visitors to the festival next weekend- Friday and Saturday April 5 and 6. For more information about the festival click here- http://historicdeepwoodestate.org/historic/estate/calendar_events/2013/04/05/ I am delighted to say that my cards will be on sale at the festival also.
Aislinn Adams
Pacific Northwest native- red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum- a favorite on both sides of the Atlantic!
Red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum.
My botanical illustration this week is part of an on-going series I am creating – Pacific Northwest Native Plants. Sadly, the actual shrub from which I sketched this illustration is no longer alive, having succumbed to a bad ice storm several winters ago. I have since planted more red flowering currants, Ribes sanguineum, in my yard but I am glad to have this botanical illustration as a souvenir of that plant. It was a very fine specimen.
A favorite with the humming birds!
This lovely shrub is native to the Willamette Valley, Oregon, where I now live, but it is also fairly common in Ireland – where I come from originally. I remember it as a child growing in the hedge between my garden and my neighbor’s. I didn’t pay much attention to it, as I didn’t like its “perfume”. I have since discovered that humming birds have no such scruples –or a very different sense of smell to humans- because the red flowering currant is a sure favorite with them here every spring.
Thanks to Archibald Menzies and David Douglas.
Thinking of those childhood memories got me wondering about how long the red flowering currant has been in Ireland- a pretty long time as it turns out, thanks to two Scotsmen – Archibald Menzies and David Douglas. Menzies was the first to bring the shrub to the attention of botanists in Britain in the late 1700’s. But it was David Douglas who brought back the viable seeds that became the first red flowering currant shrubs grown on that side of the Atlantic.
In 1825 the London Horticultural Society sent Douglas to the Pacific Northwest; his task was to collect plants that were already known to British botanists but had not been introduced into cultivation. He more than fulfilled this task, not only introducing many already described plants but also “discovering” new ones.
David Douglas – seed collector extraordinaire!
So successful was Douglas in his collecting that he overwhelmed his clients with vast amounts of seed obliging them to redistribute the surplus to other nurseries. According to the Horticultural Society of London the proceeds from selling this shrub alone more than paid for Douglas’ trip to the Pacific Northwest and to this day the red-flowering currant remains one of the most popular flowering shrubs in Britain.
Aislinn Adams
The saga of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and the Irish nurseryman Bernard McMahon’s unwitting role in its fate!
This week I’m posting a different botanical illustration of the Pacific Northwest native plant named for Bernard McMahon- and not one of my own. This actual botanical illustration was very possibly created in McMahon’s home. To find out how read on.
Tall Oregon grape. Mahonia aquifolium syn. Berberis aquifolium. Illustrated by Frederick Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis, 1814. According to Joseph Ewan (Frederick Pursh 1774-1820 and his Botanical Associates) you can see where Pursh traced the plant from the dried specimen in the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection.
The Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and Bernard McMahon’s role in its fate.
While researching my last blog – Nurseryman Bernard McMahon and the Oregon native plant with an Irish connection– I promised to return to the story of Bernard McMahon’s, sometimes unwitting, role in the fortunes of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection.
“The convoluted history of the seeds and plants collected by Lewis and Clark, their passage from Washington and Oregon into the botanical record was nearly as arduous as the journey itself… Working largely behind the scenes, one obscure figure, Bernard McMahon, assumed a primary role in nurturing the seeds from field to page.”
Robert S. Cox
From the Pacific Northwest to McMahon’s nursery.
In order to understand how this happened let us go back a little and look at the history of this famed collection once it arrived back in the eastern U.S. The collection was shipped back east in two stages. The first shipment was sent back in 1805 and the second brought back by Lewis & Clark in 1806. There were two parts to the collection- the dried specimens and the live seeds. The dried specimens were sent to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia where, it was understood, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton would assist Lewis in preparing their description for publication. The seeds were divided between McMahon and William Hamilton who were to propagate and grow them in secret until such time as Lewis would bring the account of his travels and the plant collection to print. Apparently, McMahon proceeded immediately to germinate the seeds whereas Hamilton was slower to set to the task.
From under his nose!
While Jefferson and Lewis were counseling McMahon to keep the precious live plant collection secret fearing some unscrupulous botanist might, on discovering its existence at McMahon’s nursery, rob Lewis of his right to describing them first, in the end it was the dried specimens that were more at risk of being spirited away. Ironically, this was not done by some outside interloper but by the very person McMahon recommended to assist Lewis bring his work to publication; and it was this assistant who ultimately published the collection first, not in the United States but in England – adding insult to injury.
MacMahon helps speed up the plant collection’s journey to print.
For a variety of reasons both Barton and Lewis delayed in preparing the material for publication. McMahon, wishing to be helpful and possibly anxious to shorten the “quarantine” period of the secret plants he had in his care, recommended the young German botanist Frederick Pursh for the job. Pursh was probably already familiar with some of the dried specimens, having been employed by Barton at the time that the first shipment of plants had arrived back east.
Difficult working conditions bring Pursh to MacMahon’s home.
By all accounts Barton was a difficult person to work for and things did not go well between him and Pursh- so much so that by early 1807 Pursh had moved into MacMahon’s home and begun working on Lewis’ plants there. At this time Lewis was Governor of the Louisiana Territory and living in St. Louis. MacMahon wrote several times to St. Louis seeking instruction on Pursh’s behalf but with no success. He also took it upon himself, while waiting for the arrival of Lewis, to pay Pursh to describe the dried specimens (which had been brought from Barton’s Herbarium.) Pursh had the work more or less completed by early 1809 and grew restless waiting for further instruction. However, in 1809 Lewis died in tragic circumstances. Clark, as executor of Lewis’ will, took over responsibility for the collection material but, while MacMahon kept the live and dried specimens in safe keeping for Clark, Pursh left (or should I say absconded?) with the drawings and descriptions- and as it turns out some of the dried specimens as well.
Somehow, amazingly, during all this time (over a year) while Pursh was living at MacMahon’s and working on the collection, he never discovered the live specimens growing at the nursery (Joseph Ewan- Frederick Pursh 1774-1820 and his Botanical Associates.)
Finally published in London, England.
A description of the well-travelled collection was finally published in England by Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1814.) It is not clear to me if Pursh was ever properly reimbursed for the work he did for Lewis. Nonetheless does that excuse his behavior? Does a combination of frustrated ambition and impecuniosity justify his conduct? His mysterious disappearance from the U. S. and reappearance in London a couple of years later caused much speculation and criticism amongst American botanists at the time and maybe it is for this reason that his Flora never sold well.
What of the live plant specimens at McMahon’s Nursery?
According to Ewan the first evidence of McMahon advertising plants for sale from the collection was 1815. Sadly he didn’t live long enough to benefit from such sales, dying the following year. But as I mentioned in my last blog, his life and work was memorialized by the botanist Thomas Nuttall who, in 1818, named the genus of shrubs Mahonia for him in his flora, The Genera of North American Plants. According to the record this flora was much more successful than Pursh’s.
Aislinn Adams
Nurseryman Bernard MacMahon and the Oregon native plant with an Irish connection.
Mahonia aquifolium syn. Berberis aquifolium.
© Aislinn Adams 2008
Tall Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium- Oregon’s state flower and its Irish name!
I’ve always marveled at how something as fragile as a plant can end up thousands of miles from its original home: collected and pressed into herbarium specimens or more amazingly, kept alive on long transcontinental journeys and treacherous sea voyages. Somehow they avoid destruction and are finally transplanted into a foreign soil and there, not only survive but thrive.
I must confess I feel a certain affinity with these well-travelled plants. I am also a transplant from a far off land having emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland. However, my journey was pretty uneventful and mundane when compared to the fortunes of these early pioneering plants and their adventurous collectors who often risked everything to bring them back.
As a horticulturist and botanic artist I feel not a small debt to these enduring plants and their collectors. So, when I post my botanical illustrations, instead of writing about their cultivation I prefer to write the human stories behind the plants. The story behind this week’s botanical illustration, tall Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium, contains all the elements of a good plant story but it also has another important attraction for me: it connects the place of my birth with my new home in Oregon.
Two scientific names for one plant!
The connection to Ireland lies in the second scientific name for this genus of shrubs. For some reason Oregon grape has two scientific names- Berberis and Mahonia. Generally speaking, botanists use the first name while horticulturists use the second. As a horticulturist I learned to name the genus Mahonia and even though I have been aware of both names for many years it has never bothered me which one was used. Now that I’ve discovered the Irish connection I’m more inclined to favor the latter.
Years ago in Ireland I chose Mahonia aquifolium for my first garden. Back then I didn’t give the plant’s scientific name much thought. It wasn’t until I moved to the Pacific Northwest and discovered Mahonia aquifolium growing in the wild that I began to wonder about its Irish-sounding name.
Irish Nurseryman Bernard MacMahon
That is how I discovered the Irish nurseryman Bernard MacMahon (1775-1816) . Maybe it was because MacMahon had to leave Ireland in a hurry that so little is known about his early life other than he emigrated (probably from Ulster) around 1796. (Some historians suggest that he fled government persecution due to his political leanings towards the United Irishmen.) Fortunately we know a lot more about his life in the U.S.
MacMahon Nursery and Seedhouse.
By the early 1800’s MacMahon had established a successful nursery and seed business in Philadelphia where many of the up and coming young botanists of the day would gather (including William Darlington and Thomas Nuttall.) However, MacMahon’s main “claim to fame” was his popular gardening book The American Gardener’s Calendar– the first book of its kind to be published in the U.S. It ran to 11 editions and had many admirers, one of whom was President Thomas Jefferson. So impressed was Jefferson with The Calendar that he became a regular correspondent with MacMahon, often trading plants and seeds.
Lewis and Clarke’s Plant and seed collection.
1806, the year The Calendar was published was also the year that Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery returned from the Pacific Northwest. As directed by Jefferson the expedition returned with a trove of plants and seeds collected along the way. Jefferson expected Lewis to publish their description as soon as possible. Unfortunately, due to his untimely death, publication was delayed. The story of this famous plant and seed collection is an interesting but complicated one with many twists and turns and MacMahon’s, sometimes unwitting, role in its fortunes will be the subject of my next blog. In the meantime, for the purpose of this story, all you need to know is that the collection passed through the grasp of several individuals before finally arriving in the capable hands of MacMahon.
“Classified” seeds!
This was no ordinary collection. Jefferson passed on the larger portion of the collection’s seed to MacMahon with strict instructions: as federal property he was forbidden to propagate any of the seeds for commercial use and the collection had to be kept secret while its description awaited publication. In spite of these restrictions MacMahon set to propagating and growing the seeds with great diligence and skill and the plants flourished. He never really benefited from the plants commercially, nor from being able to advertise their existence at his nursery but in the end he was honored posthumously for his efforts. In 1818 Thomas Nuttall named this genus of shrubs for him in his publication The Genera of North American Plants. I suppose one could say the reward for his hard work, loyalty and discretion was immortality in a plant’s name- for which I am very glad – because every time I see this plant I feel the connection between Ireland and Oregon and the distance recedes.
Aislinn Adams
Botanical illustrations become rubber stamps for Spring.
© 2011 Aislinn Adams
Fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum
Botanical Illustrations become rubber stamps for Spring.
I’m delighted to announce that twelve of my black and white botanical illustrations are now available as rubber stamps. I’ve just signed my first license contract with the rubber stamp company Impression Obsession.
Spring is finally in the air and the inspiration for this rubber stamp collection. There are lots of blossoms to choose from- Florida dogwood, Chinese plum, peach blossom, fawn lily, passion flower, rhododendron, lily of the valley, daffodil and crab apple. I am particularly happy to see the American native plant in the selection- fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum – a favorite from the Pacific northwest where I live.
Check out the complete collection of my new botanical illustration rubber stamps at this link.
Aislinn Adams
American Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, and Irish Fall Color?
© Aislinn Adams 1998
My first American Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua.
The first time I saw an American sweetgum was in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland. It was autumn and I was a first year horticulture student attending college there. Ireland is not known for its fall color but that sweetgum, growing on a small island in the “pond”, stopped me in my tracks; its glowing orange-red-purple leaves took my breath away. Such a marvelous display would have done New England proud.
I know there’s a whole series of chemical reactions, triggered by temperature and day length, which make leaves turn the colors they do but seeing that sweetgum made me wonder – if Ireland had more N. American native trees like sweetgum would we have better fall color too?
An American native plant.
Sweetgum is native to the eastern U.S.A. but can be found growing in many parts of the country, including on my own street here in Salem, Oregon. It is not popular with many of my neighbors because its shallow roots push up through the concrete pavement causing large cracks. Even though several neighbors have replaced the sweetgums with smaller, more sidewalk-friendly species, there are still enough on the street to give a striking autumnal show- one I look forward to every year.
Ireland can have good Fall color too.
The botanical watercolor illustration above is part of a series I created for Birr Castle Visitor’s Center in Ireland (and part of my botanical watercolor greeting card series.) I worked on these botanical illustrations while staying in Washington D.C. and was happy to use sweetgum plant specimens from my D.C. neighborhood. I have visited Birr Castle demesne many times (I grew up about 20 miles from Birr) but I don’t recall seeing sweetgum growing there. I have no idea how good the Birr sweetgum looks in an Irish Fall but decided to paint it with good fall color anyway as I like to believe that it too can give as good a show as any of the trees here in the U.S.A. After all, the National Botanic Gardens’ sweetgum looked great.
Aislinn Adams
The Common Fig, Ficus carica, the First Cultivated Plant.
The story of the common fig, Ficus carica, needs more than one blog.
I started writing about the common fig in my last blog- The common fig, Ficus carica, Fruit, Flower or Carnivore? As I uncovered its story I realized that it would take more than one blog to share its long and complex history. I illustrated the common fig, Ficus carica, several times for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post. This week I post a botanical illustration of Ficus carica “Negronne” to illustrate this entry. This natural dwarf variety can be grown in containers and is particularly suited to the Pacific North West, where I live.
The common fig, Ficus carica, and the first farmers.
It seems everything I read currently brings me back to the first farmers. Recently while reading about the Burren region in the west of Ireland I learned how the first farmers impacted that environment, using only a simple axe as their main tool. Then, while researching the common fig, Ficus carica, for this blog, I discovered that it was probably the first plant cultivated by humans: predating the Neolithic farmers’ “eight founder crops” -einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, lentils, chickpeas, barley, flax, bitter vetch, and peas, Wikipedia– by many centuries.
Neolithic Farmers.
The Neolithic period (starting c. 9500 BCE) marks the beginning of farming and the common fig comes from the region where farming began, the Middle East. Common fig subfossils found in the Neolithic village of Gilgal 1, 13 Kilometers north of Jericho (present day West Bank,) date from 9400-9200 BCE.
Parthenocarpic figs and human selection.
This first fig crop was a parthenocarpic type i.e. the fruit is produced without pollination (see my last blog for more on this subject.) This means that these fig plants were “cultivars” i.e. plants selected and propagated from cuttings by humans rather than grown from seed. We have been growing and eating figs, as well as introducing them to different parts of the world, for over 12,000 years. Parthenocarpic varieties helped this spread because they don’t need a local insect to pollinate the plants in order to produce fruit.
How much do I know about the food I eat?
Reading about the common fig makes me realize how little I know about the food I eat. I’m not talking about which farm my food comes from, whether it is organic or conventional, what variety it is, or how far it has traveled to reach the grocery shop’s shelf. Rather, I am talking about food’s cultural history. I wonder what it means that we have been eating figs since the end of the last ice age? What a long human-plant relationship this is. Have we co-evolved together?
Plant or human selection?
In my last blog I also wrote about the high nutritional value of figs, especially in relation to our human needs. Is this just a happy coincidence? Science may explain the selection and success of figs as a food crop through a mixture of human interference and natural selection but I wonder if those first farmers choose the fig knowing how nutritional it was to eat or just because it tasted good? Or, could it be, as Michael Pollan suggests in his book The Botany of Desire, that the common fig chose us to guarantee its survival?
Agriculture- from Neolithic times to today.
Agriculture has come a long way since Neolithic times. The highly intensive form that we now practice, with its heavy dependence on chemicals, limited selection of crops grown in vast monocultures and enormous use of fossil fuels and other natural resources to produce the crops, is a far cry from those early days. I imagine those first farmers, mostly women undoubtedly, scratching their heads in amazement. Learning about the common fig’s story raises my awareness of our dependence on nature to sustain us: the long and critical relationship we humans have with the plant kingdom- the source of most of our food- and the role this small fruit has played.
Aislinn Adams
The Common Fig, Ficus carica, Fruit, Flower or Carnivore?
The Common Fig, Ficus carica, unwelcome bounty!
I originally started writing about the common fig, Ficus carica, because of my annual battle with it. Our neighbor’s fig tree leans over the fence onto our yard and rains its bounty of figs onto our vegetable garden every year. Unfortunately, neither I nor my husband or daughter eat figs. I find them too sweet, preferring fruit with a more tangy taste. Every year I spend hours cleaning up semi-rotten figs after they have smashed their way through our tomato plants before embedding themselves, like small, sticky bombs, into the mulched paths. Then the clouds of fruit flies follow. It is not one of my favorite gardening moments in the year.
Coming to terms with the common fig.
Even though I don’t like to eat figs I do feel guilty that I am allowing this food source to go to waste. I ask friends and neighbors to come and pick but to date no one has taken me up on the offer. In an effort to come to terms with this dilemma I started researching the common fig. Maybe knowing more about the plant would help me change my attitude and even motivate me to eat some of them or make more of an effort to pass them on to others at least.
I have illustrated the common fig several times for the Digging In gardening column of the Washington Post. Both times I used my neighbor’s tree for reference. I love drawing botanical illustrations, regardless of the subject, especially when I can use a live specimen, and there is no shortage of live specimens of fig in my garden!! I feel I owe this tree something seeing as it has helped me out in the past.
The common fig, a fascinating story.
Once again I start researching a plant and find myself drawn into a long and intriguing story that brings me all the way back to Neolithic times and the first farmers. By coincidence I am reading a book at the moment that has spurred on my research- The Fruit Hunters, A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession. This book by Adam Leith Gollner is a great read and even if you have only the slimmest interest in plants you will find it full of great stories to edify and entertain.
Too good a story for just one blog entry.
The story of the common fig, Ficus carica, is a complex and multi-faceted one that merits a book or indeed a series of books. There are two aspects of the fig’s story that have delighted me and sent my imagination into over-drive.
1. The reproductive cycle of the fig and its pollination strategies.
2. The first farmers (Neolithic) who domesticated the fig.
For this reason I’m writing two blogs on the subject starting with the reproductive cycle of the fig and its pollination story.
A fruit that is not a fruit!
I should write ‘false fruit’ or ‘multiple fruit’ when referring to the fig because what we eat is in fact the flower or inflorescence (an arrangement of multiple flowers.) The fig ‘fruit’ is a flower turned inside out: its juicy, red interior made up of lots of individual flowers and seeds growing together. The pollinator, a small female fig wasp that depends totally on the fig for its life cycle, must enter through a small opening in the fig, loosing her antennae and wings en route, to lay her eggs on the female fig flowers.
Fig tree pollination-well, sometimes?
Before all you fig lovers start spitting out your figs let me reassure you. Figs have several ways of producing fruits and most of the varieties in our gardens (Adriatic, Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Brunswick, and Celeste) are self-fertilized i.e. parthenocarpically. This means that they do not need pollination to produce their fruit.
Carnivorous figs?
The fig varieties that are pollinated by female wasps (e.g. Calimyrna, Marabout, and Zidi) consume the wasp after she has done her job laying her eggs and pollinating the flowers (Does this make the fig a carnivore?) When these eggs mature into female and male wasps the males (who are wingless) mate with the females and chew a tunnel through the fruit creating an opening through which the female wasps can escape. This suggests to me that the wasps may have left the fruit to find new fruits to pollinate before the fig is eaten but one account I read said that we eat the wasp’s eggs with the fruit- extra protein for us all?
Great nutrition- keep eating your figs.
I hope my account of the coevolution of the fig and fig wasp and their symbiotic relationship doesn’t put all you fig lovers off your figs, but rather fills you with the wonder and awe that nature continues to inspire in me? Who needs science fiction when we have nature all around us. I do eat dried figs and now that I’ve learned what a nutritious food it is, I plan to eat more. According to Wikipedia, figs are one of the highest plant sources of calcium and fiber and USDA research on the Mission variety found that dried figs are richest in fiber, copper, manganese, magnesium, potassium, calcium and vitamin K, relative to human needs. They also contain many antioxidants. So keep eating your figs and maybe I’ll figure out a way to dry some of my neighbor’s next year.
Aislinn Adams
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