Fig Varieties: A Monograph - uri=ucce.ucdavis

448 Hilgardia
[Vol. 23, No. 11
as bearing fruit which may remain on the tree during the winter and mature in the
spring, is apparently a different variety.
As early as 1850, Thomas Affleck reported that of the twenty-odd sorts of figs in his
orchard at Washington, Mississippi, the Celeste or Celestial was the general favorite.
Source of the first importation of Celeste and the significance of the name have not
been learned. In its catalogue of 1828, Bartram’s Botanic Garden, Philadelphia, offered
“Coelestial” fig trees at fifty cents each. For a century or more it has been the leading
variety in Louisiana and Mississippi; Earle (1897) reported that nine-tenths of all figs
grown in these two states were Celeste. In Georgia, Woodard showed that this variety
ranked with Brunswick and Brown Turkey in high production and resistance to winter
injury.
Although Malta is a common fig, trees do drop a considerable percentage of their
crop under some circumstances. W. S. Anderson found in Mississippi in 1924, that
many fruits set, but when not more than, one-half inch in diameter they usually
shriveled and fell off; the trees bore better crops in dooryards than under orchard
conditions, either with clean culture or in permanent sod. Canning companies at St.
Martinsville, Elizabeth, and Jeanerette, Louisiana, harvest Malta (Celeste) figs from
dooryard trees, and handle considerable quantities as preserves under various brands.
In the garden of the restored governor’s mansion at Williamsburg, Virginia, there is a
planting of fig trees consisting mostly of this variety.
Malta (Celeste) was introduced into California from eastern nurseries between 1860
and 1870, but on account of the small size of the fruit (has never attracted attention
commercially. Individual trees are occasionally found in yards, but most homeowners
prefer varieties which either produce two crops, or a single crop of larger fruit. Trees
are hardy, partly on account of prolonged spring dormancy. According to Stansel and
Wyche, they were not injured in Texas by a temperature of 11°F. in 1930.
In the southern United States it is generally considered to be a vigorous grower, but
in California trees are slow-growing and dwarf in habit as compared with trees of most
commercial varieties. Terminal buds are green. Leaves below medium, glossy, 3- to 5-
lobed; upper sinuses moderately deep and broad, lower sinuses shallow; base
subcordate; margins crenate.
Breba crop small, or mostly none; in Texas a few brebas occasionally mature in May,
the individual figs being larger than those of the main crop.
Second-crop figs at Riverside, California, small, up to 1-3/4 inches long and 1-1/4
inches in diameter, pyriform, with neck tapering gradually from body to stalk; average
weight 14 grams; stalk slender, up to 3/4 inch long; ribs broad, slightly elevated; eye
medium, partly open, but not readily admitting dried-fruit beetles; scales chaffy, erect at
maturity; surface dull, with conspicuous bloom often absent from a sharply defined
apical zone; white flecks scattered, fairly conspicuous, but becoming masked by mature
body color; skin checking crisscross at maturity; color violet-bronze to chocolate
brown; pulp strawberry; flavor sweet and rich; seeds small, hardly noticeable; quality
good. Figs drop and dry without spoiling. (Plates 9; 25, C.)
Caprified figs are larger, spherical-turbinate; pronounced violet tint outside and dark
strawberry inside flavor subacid; seeds numerous.