Ira Condit's opinion of various figs

[Richard]

My digital assimilation of Condit’s monograph is now 82% complete according to my progress software. I’ve already submitted one paper using some initial findings and another is in the works for a final report. These will both be in the public domain.

[Richard]

Pregussata (C).
According to Lindley, this most beautiful and excellent fig was sent to England from the Ionian Islands.
Second-crop figs are described as medium, oblate, dark brown, tinged with purple; pulp dark red; flavor sweet and rich.

[Richard]

According to Howard (1945), Foundling was so named by Luther Burbank, who found it in 1885 in a shipment of White Smyrna (Blanche) trees imported from the eastern Mediterranean. The single tree bore two crops of large, yellowish-brown figs, of fine flavor.

[Richard]

I’ve finally finished my initial digital assimilation of Condit’s 1955 Monograph. Whew! Here’s a summary of the attributes I chose to extract. The next several weeks will be spent on error checking and creation of “data products”.

[Richard]

Condit’s monograph is a maze of names! Among them are (a) cultivars he individually describes, (b) alternate names – aka true synonyms, which he mentions, and (c) similar cultivars – names which he either mentions or individually describes.

This last category “Similar Cultivars” contains 56 groups of interconnected names, ranging in size from 2 to 40. Here’s one of the larger groups. Orange denotes cultivars described by Condit, the remainder he only mentions.

[Richard]

Condit used 20 descriptors for fig sizes which I’ve categorized into 12 groups. Commas separate multiple values given for a cultivar.

Description	Rank
very small	1
below small	2
very small, small	2
small	3
above small	4
small, below medium	4
small, medium	4
below medium	5
below medium, medium	5
medium	6
above medium	7
above medium, large	7
medium, above medium	7
medium, large	7
below large	8
large	9
medium, large, very large	9
large, very large	10
very large	11
variable	12

[Richard]

Here’s a cross-section of Condit’s data, maximized for number of cultivars and number of mutual attributes (not the attribute values).

Cultivar	Type	Spring crop productivity	Spring fruit pulp color	Spring fruit shape	Spring fruit size	Spring fruit skin color	Summer crop quality	Summer fruit flavor	Summer fruit pulp color	Summer fruit size	Summer fruit skin color
Archipel	C	good	white, tinged pink	pyriform	above medium	bronze, tinged violet	good coastal, poor inland	excellent coastal, insipid inland	amber	medium	bronze, tinged violet
Blanche	C	fair	white	turbinate	medium, above medium	light green	fair	rich, sweet	white	medium	light green
Bontard	C	few	light strawberry	variable	variable	light green	poor	mild	amber, light strawberry	medium	green, yellow
Brunswick	C	small, good	amber	pyriform	large	red, brown, tinged violet	good	sweet, moderately rich	amber	medium	bronze
Datte	C	varies	dark strawberry	oblique-pyriform	medium, above medium	green, tinged violet	poor	sweet, rich	light strawberry	medium	light green, brown
Dauphine	Sp	good	light strawberry	turbinate	large	green, violet, purple	poor	moderately rich	light strawberry	medium	green, violet, purple
Dottato	C	none, fair	amber	pyriform	medium, large	green, yellow	excellent	rich, sweet	amber	below medium, medium	green, golden yellow
English Brown Turkey	C	few	strawberry	oblique-pyriform	medium	mahogany brown, tinged violet	fair, mosaic virus in western States	sweet	amber, light strawberry	below medium, medium	auburn, burnt umber
Franciscana	C	good	light strawberry	pyriform	large	black	excellent	distinctive, rich	amber, light strawberry	variable	black
Genoa	C	small	light strawberry	oblique-pyriform	large	green, yellow	fair, poor, spoilage	mild	amber, tinged strawberry	medium, above medium	green, yellow, brown
Gouraud Rouge	C	fair	light strawberry	oblique-pyriform	medium	chocolate, burnt umber	spoilage, fair	mild	strawberry	medium	reddish brown
Hunt	C	light	strawberry	elongated, oblique-pyriform	small, medium	green, brown	fair, good	rich, sweet	amber, tinged strawberry	small, below medium	bronze
Ischia	C	small, none	light strawberry	spherical	below medium	green, tinged violet	fair	sweet	very light strawberry	small	green, violet
Mission	C	good	light strawberry	pyriform	large	black	excellent	distinctive, rich	amber, light strawberry	variable	black
Precoce de Barcelona	C	small, fair	light strawberry	turbinate	medium	purplish black	fair, good	rich	light strawberry	small	black
Verdal	C	rare	strawberry	turbinate	medium	greenish violet	good	rich	strawberry	medium	green, tinged violet
Verdone	C	very small, none	dark strawberry	oblique-pyriform	medium, above medium	green, violet	mosaic virus, good, excellent	rich	light strawberry, blood red	medium, large	grass green, green, yellow
Yellow Neches	C	small	strawberry	turbinate	small	green	poor	insipid, subacid	strawberry	small	green, light yellow

[Richard]

Here is another cross section, this time of figs Condit rated high in one or both crops.

Cultivar	Type	Spring crop productivity	Spring crop quality	Spring fruit flavor	Summer crop productivity	Summer crop quality	Summer fruit flavor	Summer fruit pulp texture
Azendjar	S	productive			productive	very good	very sweet
Badalhouce	C	good	very good
Bellona	C	rare			abundant	excellent
Bordeaux	C	fair, good	very good	rich	prolific		moderately rich
Carabaseta	C					exceptionally good	very sweet
Col de Dame Noir	C	none				excellent	luscious
Dottato	C	none, fair	excellent	sweet		excellent	rich, sweet
Drap d’Or	Sp	small	excellent	rich, sweet		poor, good	rich
Du Roi	C	none				excellent	highest flavored fig grown
Euscaire	S					excellent	rich, sweet
Franche Paillard	C	light	very good		abundant	good		very juicy
Franciscana	C	good	excellent			excellent	distinctive, rich
Ischia Brown	C				excellent	excellent	sweet, good
Kassaba	S					very good	rich, sweet
Khdari	Sp		exceptionally good	rich, sweet				very juicy
King	Sp		excellent	rich		good	rich
Marabout	S					very good	rich, sweet	coarse
Mignonne	C					excellent	highly flavored
Mission	C	good	excellent			excellent	distinctive, rich
Monaco	C	abundant	excellent			good		juicy
Mota	S	rare				very good	very sweet
Negronne [French]	C	fair, good	very good	rich			moderately rich
Ottato Rosso	Sp			very sweet		excellent
Pastiliere [sans down]	C	none, rare			abundant	superior		gelatinous
Peau Dure [French]	C	very productive	very good	slightly acid	very productive	excellent
Pied de Boeuf	Sp	fair, good	good			excellent	rich, sweet	coarse
Saint Jean	C	fair	excellent	rich, sweet			excellent
Sari Lop	S	fair		insipid		excellent	rich, sweet
Senora	C					excellent	delicate
Signora	C	none				excellent	very sweet
Snowden	S	none				excellent	rich, sweet
Violette Plate	C	light			good	excellent

[Richard]

Here’s the last of the 181 data tables I created in this project. All of them will soon be available on a persistent repository, ironically named Figshare.

This short list contains cultivars existing a century ago with low climate risk factors – esp. for the U.S. south.

Cultivar	Type	Alternate Names	Spring fruit eye	Spring fruit shape	Spring fruit stalk	Summer fruit eye	Summer fruit stalk
Longue d’Aout	C					closed	3/4 inch
Marseillaise Black	C	Black Marseilles, Marseillaise Negra, Black Provence				closed	long
Mor Guz	S					partly open	medium long
Mor [S]	S					partly open	long
Observantine	C	Cotignana, Observantiere Grise		elongated-pyriform	long
Peconjudo	C	Pedonculee, Peconjude Grise, Peconjano, Pecouliano				closed	long
Perroquine	C	Perruquiere, Violette Perruquine, Argusela, Douqueira, Peroquina, Monginenco	closed	elongated-pyriform
Shtawi	C					partly open	long
Zimitza	C					closed	long