edit: Photos of 'mother tree' are in post #10. Thanks for looking. :)

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I have no idea what it is, but I have to start somewhere. :) I took cuttings from the basal sprouts on a very old tree that had been cut down in the past. The old trunk was about a foot and a half in diameter. The tree is located on an old estate in a very ritzy part of town. The larger sprouts were supporting a small breba crop. If the cuttings take, I'll give them the name of the old estate - until I see what the fruits turn out to be. Around here most of the figs are mission, generic brown turkey, and a green fig, probably kadota.

On the way home I spotted another large fig tree in a very old part of town. It was too far from the road to get a cutting, and no one was around to ask. But they had goats and chickens so are earthy-types. The tree was thick with breba figs. I'll keep an eye on that one.

This is going to be fun.

Good luck, Gina!

Very cool. I'm in the process of collecting from an unknown tree near me as well. It's exciting. Good luck!

John

NC Zone 8a/8b

Gina....
Hope you collecting efforts bear fruit. 

I like the idea of naming the fig after the old estate from where you collected the plant material.  Good way to honor its memory, or, to mark a location.

I can't even imagine how nice a climate Southern California must have for a plant lover, and especially a fig grower.  Your plants grow for ten months, and mine grow for two-three months.  What a contrast!

Color me envious... another one of the Seven Deadly Sins that I have.

Frank

Good luck!

Update - 6 weeks later....

Here are a couple of the rooted cuttings from the unknown fig from the old estate. I looked again at the tree the other day, and there are a few brebas, nowhere close to being ripe. I still have no clue what this tree is.

The cuttings from greenwood, which rooted easily, have a slight purplish pigmentation on the new stems and petioles. I'm hoping this is a hint that the fruit will be dark.

(Click on thumbnail to enlarge.)

Those cuttings look good! Interesting shape to the leaves. Hope you post pics of them when they are more mature 

Hoping there Dark type for you also.   ; )

Mystery figs are fun. I hope it's especially delicious! Good-luck!

I realized after you posted this that I could take pictures of the mother plant, so I did. It obviously has the leaf-mottling of fmv. And lots of pigmentation on younger tissues so it most likely is a dark fig. It has a few breba but not a lot. Hope some survive so I can watch them mature.

Anyone have any ideas what this might be. These large shoots are growing next to a stump on an old estate - I initially had assumed from the stump. But after looking further, that might not be the case. I suppose it could be a seedling of some sort.

(Click thumbnails to enlarge)

no clue what that is, but it looks great. never was good at telling what is what. my brain is too fried from other stuff to observe what leaves and fruits look like :) 

pete

I will hazzard a guess, but I am certainly not confident in my leaf identifying skills. The mature leaves are very generic looking to me and could be Brown Turkey. Of course that is the safest guess and probably not what you wanted to hear.

My guess, with the limited inforrmation available, is Franciscana a.k.a. Black Mission complete with FMV.