Two years ago a fellow forum member sent me a small fig start out of Gene Hosey's collection (cuttings originally taken right from Gene's old townhouse garden). He had it identified as Scott's Black, but I'm thinking the color is just a tad off for that. After studying Gene's old East Coast Figs website (shout out to Harvey for pulling these files off of the Way Back Machine) I narrowed the list to 15 or so possibilities. On search number three I think I got the proper ID, but I'm throwing it out to the forum for your opinions.

The fig was very sweet with little complexity and no seed crunch at all, a honey fig in my experience. I gave it an 8/10, and I'm definitely a complex fig lover. It could have remained on the tree another day, maybe two, though it might have been too sweet for me by then.

The two leaf shapes are equally distributed on the tree, with one trunk having almost all three lobed leaves and the other the three plus large thumbs.

I think it's Panevino White. What think the rest of you?

Neil, as far as in-ground figs growing in (what used to be) his backyard there were maybe only 6-8 that I can remember when I visited last Fall.  So the East Coast figs collection was no where near fully represented in his backyard.  (He had an orchard in southern MD where most of his figs were growing.)  Anyway, one of the figs in his backyard was SalsEL but I remember he also had an Excel which is a green/yellow fig.  I wonder if this could be it?

That's not Excel

Thanks for the heads up, Steve. There may have been more figs in that yard when the other forum member visited. If he wants to chime in here, I'll let him intro himself as the awful human being who mis-tagged a fig he sent to me.

Strudel, why do you think it is not Excel? Here's a link to the F4F pics of Excel. The figs look similar to the UCD Excel, though different than Jon's Excel, which I happen to have too. I also have a 2nd leaf Excel from another source (pretty sure it's UCD via a Sacramento CRFG scion exchange) that hasn't fruited for me yet. I hadn't thought to compare leaves, something I'll do when I get home this evening.

The fruit description seems pretty close, as Excel is described as intensely sweet. I'm not sure that's the case with Panevino White.

Neil,

Well I guess I should say It doesn't look like my Excel based on having that long of neck. Mine were rooted from USDA Davis and actually have from another source that looks the same. Mine look like Marios in that thread you linked, but never quite as big as post 11 in that thread. But always yellow and round without much of a neck. My Excel is at 12:00 in this post http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/coke-the-pause-that-refreshes-7039549?pid=1283939806#post1283939806

But that's just my opinion and I'm wrong at least as often as right.

Here's my UCD Excel leaf, if it helps. No fruit yet. Mine has HUGE leaves. Leaves look slightly different to me, but I'm not any authority.

Thanks for the photo, Kelby. There are some larger leaves on my tree, but the photo I had of one of them was slightly too large to post on F4F and I didn't want to bother resizing it. Though small, the leaves I included in the initial post correspond pretty closely to the primary leaf shapes on my tree. I compared this tree to my two-year old Excel and noted that the leaves are pretty close, but they seem a bit thicker and more leathery, but that's not definitive. It has a couple of fruits on it, but they are pretty small and may not ripen this year, so I may not be able to compare fruit until next year.

Still no work from the Panevino White community. I'd like to know from any who grow it how it tastes, super sweet with no seed crunch or similar to my description in post #1.