You are most welcome Dennis

Cecil,
Did the O'Rouke that you picked up from JR and delivered to Almost Eden have five fingered leaves like the one in the LSU Publication? If so, then we should have two authentic sources for O'Rourke.

Dennis,
When did you purchase your O'Rourke (two of them, right?) from AE?

I suspect reconciliation is in the leaves. The LSU Publication pictures seem to show that O'Rourke has mostly, if not all, five-fingered leaves. Maybe AE will share a time stamped photo of the leaves from its O'Rourke. I emailed jeffm at almostedenplants dot com with a question about the leaves.

Meanwhile, AE seems to have expanded their selection of figs to include many not available via retail:

• Bissiri #1
• Bissiri #2
• Brooklyn Dark
• Brooklyn White
• Delcon (??)
  
• Jurapa (Jurupa, right??)
• Petite Negra
• Purple Passion (??)
  
• Red Italian (??)
  
• Syrian Long
• Wuhan

Edit: Denis, seeing your post #26, I must have misread or misunderstood your intent in post #21: "Timclymer, good luck on getting an O'Rourke from Almost Eden.  I have both of their O'Rourke and IC and mine are the same. When you call John, ask him about the leaves before you purchase. I suspect it might be good for business if he could post a time stamped photo of the leaves.

I just placed an order for O'Rourke from AE.  I'll be interested to see how they show up.

@JD

Cecil!
I must have been typing while your posted your message and photo. Thanks.

Thanks to Dennis, Tim, and others for buying out the limited supply.

Your welcome JD

Done!  John says the leaves on IC and O'Rourke look the same to him.  It may be that the plants are too young to tell. 

Yeap, AE have expanded their selection.  Ebay is starting to get a bit pricey for me.  People are bidding on trees that may need the fig wasp.  AE's prices are very reasonable!

 Last week I ordered:
Bissiri2
Brooklyn Dark
Delcon
Red Italian
My trees came Tuesday.  I potted them up in gallon pots yesterday.  I always soak my trees in root hormone for a day before transplanting them.  I'll post some pics within the hour.  I already have Jurapa, PN, Purple Passion, Syrian Long and Wuhan from John and other sources.  Syrian Long and Wuhan are have interesting leaf patterns.

Not to add to the confusion, but these are pictures of O'Rourke that was grown from cuttings taken right from an O'Rourke tree at LSU. I also have one I picked up from James Robin with the label O'Rourke - Improved Celeste. See the pictures below.

A young O'Rourke leaf


A O'Rourke leaf about a couple months old.


An older O'Rourke leaf.


Figs about to ripen on my O'Rourke


Young leaf on the the James Robin O'Rouke-Improve Celeste


Older leaf

Thanks Gene. I sent you a PM.

Yeap! Gene you have the real O'Rourke!

I might add that I ate a fig off of my O'Rourke today and it was great tasting. When tasting figs I use Celeste as the standard because that is what I was raised on and the only fig I ate until a few years ago. I must say the O'Rourke I ate was better than my celeste. I ate another today that was a day or so from being ripe but I just had to see if it had the same taste, and it did. It was just not as juicy. I have others ripening soon and that will give me a better idea of the taste. I will say that it ripened nicely despite having all the rain we had over the last two weeks. The end of this week it has been dry. I will post more about them when I pick and taste more.
"gene"

I first bought my first Improved Celeste way back in 2006 from SSE.

Believe me, in those days not very many of todays figs very available form friends, catalogs or even the Internet...

When my IC first fruited, I was very impressed by it:
http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Improved-Celeste-2982584

Since then, LSU released one version of it as the "O'Rourke".

I did buy another from JR as such, but my initial assessment
was that the leaves looked exactly as my SSE (IC) one.
After a year I lost it (my fault).

Continuing my quest for a real O'R, I got some direct cuttings,
but sadly all failed.

Thanks to a good fig friend, I have same-acquired 3 cuttings rooting just right now...

gorgi, if you have trouble rooting them let me know. I will be able to spare a couple of cuttings this fall.

"gene"

So which tastes better, which bears earlier between the O'R, IC and Scott's Black, while I have the experts here?

Bob my O'Rourke, which in in the ground, stated ripening a couple of weeks after Celeste here. My IC is potted and growing slowly. It has a couple of small figs that are nowhere near ripening so no comparison here.
"gene"