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Comment by culi | Hacker News Reader

Yes figs are pollinated by a species of wasp that literally dies inside of it. There are a few varieties of the common fig that self-pollinate so if you don't have a dead wasp in your fig that's actually rather uncommon. To be fair though the males are the ones that die and they're rather small so you likely wouldn't notice it. Just a small protein boost

It's actually quite a striking example of coevolution. There are hundreds (855 according to the Catalog of Life) of different species of figs and almost just as many corresponding species of fig wasps for each species.

Makes me wonder if we should think of the fig wasp more like an organ of the fig than a separate individual. Just like we do with mitochondria which at some point were a separate living organism and still maintains a separate set of DNA

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> figs are pollinated by a species of wasp that literally dies inside of it

Are figs like other fruits in that a flower is pollinated and then the fruit grows out of it?

I bought a house 2 years ago and have a fig tree in the back yard. The first summer, the tree produced only about a dozen or two figs, but I never got any as they disappeared as soon as they started turning color (wildlife). This summer, the tree produced nearly 100 little figs but none of them ever matured/ripened and none were taken by wildlife. I didn't notice that many bees/wasps in the area of that tree (though all the other fruiting plants in my yard did extremely well - and I got to eat almost 1/3 of it!).

I'm just wondering if the tree produces the fig regardless of pollination but that pollination is required for ripening. Or if pollination is required to produce the fig at all (like how most fruiting plants work).

You got what is called Smyrna type fig - the type that needs pollination by the fig wasp in order to ripen. Since you seem to not have such a colony of wasps around, the figs won't ripen. If you want to grow and eat really good figs that doesn't require pollination, there're varieties plenty to choose from. You need to look and buy from a reputable nursery, not from generic store or nursery. Check with the community at ourfigs.com

I appreciate the response!

Now that I know this, I will probably remove the tree - eventually. It's near the deck and I don't want wasps around. Additionally, there's a big snake that likes to sun itself around the tree. Not that I mind so much, but a lot of visitors get really nervous!

One of these years, I'll get a better variety and plant it further up the hill, and move the stones that hold the heat that the snake likes so he can go hang out up there :)

> It's near the deck and I don't want wasps around.

To be clear - the wasps that pollinate figs are very, very small, and have no stinger.

They are roughly 1.5mm (2 to 4 times smaller than a mosquito) and you will almost certainly not notice them.

Like most wasps! Wasps get a bad reputation unfairly.

> ourfigs.com

Wow what a great community, thanks for sharing. Got any other similar communities? There's also:

* www.bananas.org/

* tropicalfruitforum.com/

* permies.com/forums

I'm keeping a list because I find it difficult to find actual human stories about their experiences with certain plants and I'd like to some day build something to parse online plant-centric communities like these. Especially if they're this niche!

TIL: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/

Edit: Only took 10 minutes to find Home sapiens

But as the article points out, there's a lot more in there than just fig wasps. So can I also expect these sort of bugs in my apple, plum or banana?

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