Figs do have flowers, though they are not visible like a typical bloom. The entire structure we recognize as a fig is, botanically speaking, an inverted flower cluster that ripens into a fruit-like receptacle. This unique anatomical arrangement necessitates one of the most intricate partnerships in the natural world.
The Syconium: A Hidden Bloom
The fig’s unusual structure is called a syconium. This receptacle is essentially a stem that has expanded and folded inward to create a closed chamber. Lining the inner wall of this chamber are hundreds of tiny, reduced flowers, known as florets. The only external opening is a small pore at the tip, called the ostiole, which is tightly sealed by overlapping scales or bracts. Because the fig tree, a member of the genus Ficus, hides its flowers inside this closed vessel, it cannot rely on wind or typical insect pollinators like bees, requiring a highly specialized method for pollen transfer.
The Fig Wasp Connection
Fig reproduction relies on an obligate mutualism with a specialized group of insects called fig wasps, belonging to the family Agaonidae. This relationship is so specific that nearly every one of the world’s hundreds of fig species has its own dedicated wasp pollinator. The female wasp, covered in pollen from her birth fig, is attracted to the scent of a receptive syconium. She squeezes through the narrow ostiole to enter the fig’s interior, often losing her wings and parts of her antennae in the process.
Once inside, she deposits pollen onto some of the flowers, ensuring the fig’s seeds can develop. She also attempts to lay her eggs inside the ovaries of other flowers using her ovipositor. The fig often contains two types of female flowers: long-styled flowers where the wasp cannot reach the ovary to lay an egg, leading to a seed, and short-styled flowers where she can lay an egg, which develops into a gall.
After the female wasp dies inside, her eggs hatch into larvae that mature within these galls. The wingless male wasps emerge first, mate with the unhatched females, and then chew an escape tunnel through the syconium wall. The impregnated female wasps then emerge, pick up pollen from the male flowers, and fly out through the tunnel to find a new fig, continuing the cycle.
What You Are Really Eating
The edible part of the fig is the entire ripened syconium. When you bite into a fig, the sweet, fleshy material is the thickened wall of the syconium itself. The numerous tiny, crunchy specks within the flesh are not insect remains, but the actual seeds and the shells of the unfertilized flowers.
These crunchy bits are small fruits, each one having developed from an individual pollinated floret. For figs that require a wasp for pollination, the female wasp that died inside is broken down by a powerful protein-digesting enzyme present in the fig, called ficin. This enzyme ensures that by the time the fig is ripe and ready to eat, the wasp’s body has been entirely dissolved and absorbed by the fruit.