Fig

The fig is not only one of the oldest fruits of which we have written records, but it is also the only recorded case of a symbiotic relationship between a plant and an insect. Figs were under cultivation in the land of Canaan, it is documented, in the third and second millennia B.C., and a well-preserved drawing of fig harvesting is reported to exist in an Egyptian tomb built about 1900 B.C. ¹ The first comments on the unique association between fig trees and chalcid wasps were probably those of Aristotle and Theophrastus about 340 B.C., ² who had observed that the presence of wasps is a necessity for some figs to develop to maturity. Subsequent observations ultimately revealed that fig flowers are essential for perpetuation of the wasp and it is the sole means of pollinating fig flowers, a mutually beneficial relationship.