I came across this article last night and it seems applicable to the difficulty in positive identification of varieties. In standard horticulture (figs are extra special!) you get cultivariation where scions from different parts of the parent plant will mature into different forms. For instance a greater degree of fastigateness from tip cuttings or preservation of mature or immature foliage types. But if you couple that with the mutability described in this article you have the answer to why one person's Celeste is quite different from another's.
http://www.nature.com/news/tree-s-leaves-genetically-different-from-its-roots-1.11156?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20120814

Good article.  I don't even have one "celeste," but I got a wannabe VdB!!  Thanks for the post!

I love your name, and I try to suggest "Alexis" for the grandkids, but I get voted down every time.  Now I wish to stop the grandkids from coming... STOP!
Suzi

Fascinating  :)

Figs are incredibly responsive to their environment, soil, water, weather, fertilizer, breed of neighbor's dog, and whatever else comes any where near them.

I have seen figs that are honey type one week and strawberry type the next.

As I look back through the pix taken at USDA / UC Davis over the last 5 years, the colors were so much more varied and bright in 2007. Many of the following seasons have seen a lot of varieties that all converged on a sort of grey-green skin color.

The multitude of shapes on any one tree, the multitude of leaf styles, all make identification very difficult.

And now we might have to consider that cuttings taken from different parts of the tree could give different results. Argh!!!

Nice science article Alexis, thanks for posting it.

Alexis,
Good thread.

When we buy a tree that does not turn out as expected we may call it "Mis-labeled" when it may actually be a mutant.  Consider the wholesale/broker delivering 1000 Celeste trees to a big retail chain, frequently these trees come from several sources and are all labeled as "Celeste" and in fact they are, but the possibility of mutant trees certainly exists.  Then we as a community propagate cuttings, not only spreading the mutation, but possibly advancing the deviation.   If we graft a VDB on to a Celeste rootstock to increase performance in a geographic area are we in fact creating a mutant?

We frequently destroy trees that do not perform to expectation in taste (subjective), why not for deviation from type.  I believe Frank (Bronxfig) is right in his attitude on diseased trees.  Continued propagation can only result in further mutation.

As I mentioned in my posted "Introduction", my family were contract growers, I have whole shipments not accepted and destroyed for deviation from type.

Thx
Danny K
Marshall Tx

Thanks for the article.  By the way, what is "fastigateness"?

The research described in article focused on 200 year old cottonwood trees.  In this case the number of cell divisions (and opportunities for mutation) are much greater than in your typical fig tree growing in a backyard.  There's always some small chance for somatic mutation every time a genome duplicates and over many generations of propagating a fig clone it would not be unexpected that there would be some mutations that could affect the phenotype in subtle ways.  It is conceivable that after many, many years and several rounds of clonal propagation that mutation could contribute to the ability of a fig variety to adapt itself to a stressful new environment e.g. colder winters.  But I would think it would be extremely rare for their to be any noticeable change in the characteristics of a fig progeny relative to the mother plant i.e. in one clonal generation.

From my experience propagating many different plants for decades now I think the chance of getting major diffrences is very remote. I think perhaps that certain trees or plants are more maleable and prone to mutations or differences than others. Take for example African Violets. The basic color of the species is violet or purple, but through selective breeding and a maleable nature you can see all manner of different colors and markings in the flowers and foliage. I don't think figs are quite that prone to mutations and we are probably getting the same genetic material with just about every one of our propagations. Of course there are always exceptions but with figs it would seem to be much rarer than with other plants. Hey I'm just a hobbyist and this is only my opinion, based only on my observations.

It is very simple.

If it looks good, Have it,
If it tastes good, eat it,
If it don't.....DON'T

Thx
Danny K
Marshall Tx