What do you know about the fig’s “fruit without flowers”?

"It has no gorgeous flowers, but it has sweet fruits." This is from the essay "Figs" by the famous writer Sun Li. I believe that people are familiar with figs, and have even eaten them, but they may not know the "seven benefits" of planting figs as mentioned in "Flower Mirror" by Chen Haozi of the Qing Dynasty.

The Huajing says: "There are seven benefits to planting figs: 1. They are sweet and delicious, and can benefit both the elderly and children; 2. They are no different from dried persimmons and can be eaten in baskets; 3. From the beginning of autumn to the frost, the next ripe fig can be picked and used for three months; 4. Planting a tree will yield the fastest results, while peaches and plums also need three or four years to bear fruit. Cuttings of this fruit from large branches will bear fruit this year and can grow into a tree the next year; 5. The leaves are a good medicine for treating hemorrhoids; 6. After the frost, if there are any unripe figs, they can be harvested and boiled in molasses; 7. They can survive as soon as they get soil, so plant them widely and store the fruits to prepare for bad years."

Figs originally came from the Mediterranean coast and have a cultivation history of more than 4,000 years. They were introduced to China from Persia near Iran during the Jin Dynasty. Opening the Compendium of Materia Medica, Duan Chengshi described in Youyang Zazu: "Ashan is from Persia, and the people of Fulin call it Dizhen tree. It is more than ten feet long, with lush branches and leaves. The leaves have five branches like castor beans, no flowers but fruits, red in color like persimmons, ripen in one month, and taste like persimmons." "Ashan" is the transliteration of figs in Persia. In ancient my country, figs were also called Yingri fruit, Youtanbo, Mi fruit and Dizhen fruit.

The name fig first appeared in historical books in "Compendium of Materia Medica for Famine Relief", which was written by Zhu Su, the fifth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty: "Fig: grows in the mountains and wilds, and is also planted in people's gardens today. The leaves are shaped like grape leaves, quite long, hard and thick, with trifurcated tips, and the fruits grow between the branches and leaves. They are small and green at first, and become large and shaped like plums when ripe, similar to purple eggplant color, and taste sweet." People who have never seen or eaten figs can get a glimpse of the clues from the above information.

It should be added that figs are a small deciduous tree of the genus Ficus in the Moraceae family. The flesh is seedless, soft, sweet, and has high nutritional value. It contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and water. Except for vitamin C and carotene, which are less than apples, the content of other ingredients is equal to or slightly higher than that of apples, while the content of vitamin B_1, vitamin B_2, protein, fat, calcium, and niacin is 3-5 times that of apples. Figs are mostly eaten fresh, and can also be processed into canned food, candied fruit, preserved fruit, jam, etc. After being salted, compacted, and dried into dried fruit, it can replace food. Guangdong people eat figs, stir-fry them with meat, or cook soup with ham and mushrooms, which has a unique flavor.

Figs also have high medical value. The "Supplement to Materia Medica" of the Yuan Dynasty records: "If the five hemorrhoids are swollen and painful, boil the decoction and wash it frequently to get the effect." Wang Ying, a doctor in the Ming Dynasty, pointed out that figs have the effect of "appetizing and stopping diarrhea." The modern "Dictionary of Chinese Medicine" says that it "strengthens the stomach and clears the intestines, reduces swelling and detoxifies, and treats enteritis, dysentery, sore throat, sores, boils, scabies and tinea." In recent years, foreign media reported that figs also have anti-cancer effects - French experts have discovered tiny radioactive bodies that can resist the canceration of human cells; Japanese scientists have extracted a drug from it that can prevent the growth of cancer cells and can treat a variety of early and middle-stage cancers; the low incidence of cancer in some places in South America is related to the fact that people here often eat figs, because the vitamin A and vitamin D contained in figs can prevent the formation and accumulation of carcinogenic nitrosamines in the human body.

Figs actually have flowers, but the flowers are hidden in the receptacle and cannot be seen from the outside. If you cut open an unripe fruit, you can see many pink flowers blooming in its receptacle; when the fruit is ripe, the edible part is actually formed by the receptacle. This phenomenon is called "hidden inflorescence" in botany.

Figs usually have both female and male flowers in their receptacles, which can develop into fruits without pollination. However, some fig varieties must rely on pollination by an insect called a fig bee before they can bear fruit. For example, the Smila fig only has female flowers, and it needs pollination from wild or semi-wild Kabuli figs to bear fruit. Kabuli figs are a type of fig that specializes in providing pollen and have no edible value. Fig bees, which are difficult to see with the naked eye, live in the receptacles and voluntarily act as "matchmakers" to pollinate between the two types of figs.

The United States had introduced the Smila fig long ago, but it was not until the Kabuli fig and the pollinating fig bee were introduced that they were harvested. Japan once only introduced the Smila fig, but not the Kabuli fig and the fig bee, and the result was failure. Fruit farmers in my country often cut branches of wild figs and hang them on the branches of cultivated varieties, so that the fig bees living in the receptacles of wild figs can come out to pollinate the cultivated varieties, so as to increase the yield of fruits. This is indeed a valuable experience explored in practice.

In recent years, people have also found that figs have a strong ability to absorb harmful sulfur dioxide gases. Each kilogram of dry leaves can absorb 1.4 grams of sulfur dioxide. They also have a certain resistance to sulfur trioxide combustion gases, as well as carbon dioxide, nitric acid mist, hydrogen chloride and other toxic gases. They can be planted in factories and towns with air pollution to purify the air and improve the environment. From this point of view, planting figs has added another "benefit".

(The author is a member of the China Science Writers Association)