Figs and Human Relationship

 Our relationship to figs, though ancient by human standards, is relatively new from the fig’s point of view. Figs have been good to us, providing food and medicine, shade and shelter, raiment, and even metaphysical inspiration. Figs are reputed to be the most frequently mentioned fruit in the Bible (Flaishman et al. 2008), and an important element of all mythologies and religions of the Mediterranean and Middle East. 

The ease with which cuttings of fig trees can be transported and root, when introduced into soil and water, has enabled us to propagate figs for our own use thousands of years before we were able to domesticate grains. For our part, we have also served the fig, helping it to colonize lands far distant from those of its origins. We have succeeded in establishing figs, especially the edible Ficus carica and the decorative F. benjamina, in countries of many northern climates, from New England to Northern Europe (Condit 1947). 

We have played an impressive role in figs’ evolution, as figs have also figured prominently in our own evolution. Along the way, there have been fits and starts. For the figs, continents have split off from other continents, and fig wasps have evolved alongside them to create their unique and distinctive environmentally linked system of reproduction. 

We humans have taken figs to new heights of glory, and have deeply appreciated their virtues and integrated them into our culture. Now, at the threshold of suffering, the consequences of our carelessness with our own instruments of environmental change, we may again turn fig-ward for a leaf or two to cover our shame, to absorb the toxins of our greed and stupidity. 

This field is called phytoremediation, and the Ficus species are employed in both diagnostic and “therapeutic” functions to “heal” the environmentally ravaged planet. Let us review now briefly some of the work in each of these major areas.