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Fig trees either produce hermaphrodite fruit or female figs; only the female figs are palatable to humans. In exchange for a safe place for their eggs and larvae, fig wasps help pollinate the ficus by crawling inside the tiny hole in the apex of the fig, called the ostiole, without knowing whether they crawled into a caprifig or a fig.
Caducous (or Smyrna) figs require cross pollination by the fig wasp with pollen from caprifigs for the fruit to mature. If not pollinated the immature fruits drop. Some cultivars are Marabout, Inchàrio, and Zidi. Intermediate (or San Pedro) figs set an unpollinated breba crop but need pollination for the later main crop.
Smyrna figs need to be pollinated by a fig wasp, in contrast to more domesticated forms of Ficus carica such as 'Brown Turkey', which can form figs without pollination (parthenogenetically). Figs and fig wasps have had a symbiotic relationship throughout history. [8] The fig wasps need the figs in order to reproduce, while the figs rely on the ...
Some parthenocarpic cultivars of common figs do not require pollination at all, and will produce a crop of figs (albeit sterile) in the absence of caprifigs and fig wasps. Depending on the species, each fruit can contain hundreds or even thousand of seeds. [19] Figs can be propagated by seeds, cuttings, air-layering or grafting.
The tear-dropped pod know as a fig may seem like a fruit, but it's actually a flower. And that's just one of the jaw-dropping facts to learn about them.
Figs have an obligate mutualism with fig wasp (Agaonidae); figs are only pollinated by fig wasps, and fig wasps can only reproduce in fig flowers. Generally, each fig species depends on a single species of wasp for pollination. The wasps are similarly dependent on their fig species in order to reproduce.
You’ve probably heard rumors about figs being filled with small wasps. Without the tiny bugs, the Ficus species, the producer of figs, would go extinct.
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