GARDENING : GIVE A FIG ABOUT FRUIT OF THE BIBLICAL TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.

Byline: Joshua Siskin

Anyone who knows about the origins of the apple tree could not place it in the Garden of Eden. The apple is native to the western Caucasus Mountains, which are located in the Republic of Georgia (formerly U.S.S.R.), between Turkey and the Caspian Sea. Biblical commentators place the Garden of Eden farther south, whether in Mesopotamia, Israel, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt or Ethiopia.

The tree from which Eve picked fruit - despite God's prohibition to do so - is described only as ``the Tree of Knowledge of what is good and evil.'' In Western art and literature, this tree's fruit is usually depicted as an apple, and occasionally as a pear or a quince, both of which are close botanical relatives of the apple.

The great biblical commentator known as Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac), who lived in France in the 11th century, considered the Tree of Knowledge to be a fig. After eating from this tree, Eve and Adam became ashamed of their nakedness and quickly covered themselves. Rashi explains that since Adam and Eve made loincloths out of fig leaves (Genesis 3:7), the forbidden fruit they ate must have been the fig, because ``with that which they sinned, they rectified their sin.'' The fig tree is also indigenous to most of the areas, mentioned above), where the Garden of Eden is supposed to have been situated.

Writing in the July 3 edition of the Jerusalem Post, Judy Labensohn identified the fig as a fruit that could easily corrupt a person because ``it's all pleasure ... you don't need to peel it, nor throw away any pit or seed.''

The botany of the fig, a deciduous tree, is rather unusual in that its flowers are produced within the fruit. The biology of the fig is intertwined with that of the minuscule Blastophaga wasp. This wasp lays eggs within the fruit of an inedible fig called the caprifig. Larvae hatch out, feed on and pupate within the caprifigs. At the end of pupation, adult wasps leave the caprifigs and fly to immature edible figs, crawling inside and pollinating the flowers within, before laying eggs. Once its eggs have been laid, the wasp dies and its body and eggs are assimilated into the developing fruit. Only eggs laid inside the inedible caprifigs survive.

Certain varieties of fig simply will not develop without the assistance of the Blastophaga wasp. The most notable of these varieties is the Smyrna fig. When it was first imported to California, and failed to produce a crop, the Smyrna fig was found to be totally dependent on the Blastophaga wasp. Under cultivated conditions in the Middle East, branches from caprifig trees are hung in Smyrna fig trees in order to insure the process of caprification - that is, transfer of caprifig pollen, by wasps, to flowers of the Smyrna fig. Without this pollen transfer, the fruit of the Smyrna fig will not mature.

The varieties of fig that are grown in California today, such as the Adriatic or Mission fig, do not depend on caprification for their development. However, where Blastophaga wasps have been introduced into California fig orchards, the average size of the fruit has been increased.

There are two crops of figs each year. The first crop starts to grow in March and is harvested in June. A much larger crop of figs begins to grow in April or May and is harvested over a period of several months, from July until October. Perhaps because it was harvested over a longer period of time than any other tree, the fig was associated, in ancient Israel, with continued sustenance, prosperity and peace. In the book of Micah (4:3-4), the famous verse, ``Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,'' is followed by ``but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree.''

In Los Angeles, the fig frequently appears at random as a volunteer tree. Unlike the Shamel ash and the California fan palm, which are unwanted intruders in the garden, a volunteer fig may grow into the fruit tree of your dreams, although, as a seedling, the quality of its fruit will be a complete mystery until it starts to produce, in three or four years' time. Since the fig produces its fruit on shoots that start to grow in the spring, it can be radically pruned in the winter without affecting the following year's crop.

Tip of the week: The fig tree is the easiest of all trees to propagate. Cut 12- to 18-inch shoot terminals in the fall, after all leaves have dropped from the tree. Stand the cuttings in any fast-draining soil, in pots or in the ground and they should start to root and leaf out by the end of the following spring.