Hi everyone,

My uncle was visiting us a week ago and got to talk to him a lot about his travels in rural Iran growing up. One time he had work near Neyriz a small town in southern Fars province actually near Estahban where all the fig growing for drying is done. He told me all about his couple weeks in Neyriz and said it was vastly underestimated town for fruit growing--not incredibly famous in Iran dwarfed by other fruit growing region's fame... but that this place had awesome amazing figs, grapes, and pomegranates. We're talking some old school Persian fig orchards growing wild and the likes--huge huge mother trees spread all over the mountain with dry farming technique that's popular in southern Iran.

Out of all the awesome fig varieties there he said he saw one that really made an impression on him. The locals called it Shah-anjeer meaning king of figs. The prefix "shah" is actually often used to name the best cultivar of a fruit type (with mulberries it refers to the morus nigra in Iran, Shah-miveh the best pear variety, etc.)

Anyway the story of this shah-anjeer was this. From a distance when touring the fig farms he sees one that he says literally was filled with WHITE figs. When I grilled him about the color--no you can't mean white white... you mean green...ok you mean yellow, ok you mean tan... he would not budge. He said it from a distance it looked like the tree was filled with snowballs or crumbled up paper balls. Up close same thing. I pointed out the fridge color a slight off white he said maybe maybe MAYBE the slighest offwhite was possible but not really it was straight through white. And the flavor he said was the best in the town, so they called it Shah-anjeer. Even in the town very rare now down to 1-2 trees. I've passed through Neyriz before--awesome place. Got some delicious fresh bread from the locals. Next time I will ask about Shah-anjeer to see if the now in my mind mythic fruit is real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course we have black pomegranates, we even have white pomegranates, so now I guess we may have white figs. Does anyone know of any cultivar that's white? I have a hard enough time finding a few that are legitimately yellow.

P,
Start saving now for that plane ticket.

hey p. was the fig about this white? maybe in hot dry place, this might be more white? it's from bass's fig database. it's called Persian White. after looking at this pix, i had to have it and now i have one growing.

http://www.treesofjoy.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/web_large_height_800/store/pics/persianwhite5.JPG

Hm I think the chances of it being Persian White are actually pretty close to zero but I could be wrong. If I had to take guess, I'd say there are a couple thousand fig varieties spread throughout Iran. So Persian White (which looks like a staple northern fig my family's eaten and loved) being the same as this ultra rare southern fig most Iranians haven't ever seen or heard of would be pretty surprising. As I understand it Persian White was brought over by a Persian immigrant who brought it from northern Iran and grew it successfully in NY. Fruit from northern Iran in general as opposed to southern Iran tend to be a bit better adapted to mid-Atlantic conditions which is why Persian White did so well here probably. Northern Iran gets a bit more rain, is a bit more humid, and has bit colder winters than southern Iran. I don't think it's too close of a climate to the mid-Atlantic... but it's much closer than southern Iran's climate. Northern Iran is probably more like San Jose and Washington State climates... and southern Iran like southern California. Qualified with both regions have extreme variety of microclimates.

I think Persian White is a green fig perhaps the flash/lighting made it look so light in that picture, it's supposed to resemble White Triana. Check out these pics Persian White is green/yellow on the right:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fig/msg081620477540.html

I need to find a Persian White actually. I think it may be one of the great staple figs of the north. People recognize it. The white fig from the story however nobody's heard of even Iranians--like the black pomegranate for most people. I have another light Persian fig that may turn out be similar to Persian White I got in southern California last year, knocked off the figs off it this year.

The only bad thing is that most of the really amazing Persian figs are from southern Iran and if they don't need wasp won't be too happy in mid-Atlantic anyway :.(.

Knowing the southern vs northern Iranian climate difference has actually been really useful for me trialing new fruit varieties. For stone fruit--anything from the south will likely get fungal disease like whoa in East Coast. For pomegranate, the best varieties to trial for East Coasters come from Saveh in the north--they're the most cold hardy.

Here's Google map of Shiraz (many figs originate from mountains here--including the Persian Mountain fig and Shirazi fig...) to Estahban (best varieties taken here for commercial drying) to Neyriz where the white fig supposedly lives.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Shir%C4%81z,+Fars,+Iran&daddr=Estahb%C4%81n,+Iran+to:Neyr%C4%ABz,+Iran&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sll=29.367814,53.423767&sspn=1.280552,2.705383&geocode=FRvqwwEdVZghAynj8oWMDA2yPzH2TGvvilsMbQ%3BFQtwvAEdbp44Ayk7bXzCLlWrPzEQqHQRVaZe8g%3BFWR4vQEdEds8AymZdug9uEyrPzFa08hRVO1CVg&oq=Est&mra=ls&t=m&z=9

Thanks for the fascinating information about this fig!
Ingevald

that link does show greener fig. thanks for the further information. very interesting.. truly white fig would be something to see.

Very ,very interesting . Thanks for posting this.

P,

You should have a look at my thread Greek yellow figs anyone? We had a white, and I mean white, not green, and it was sensational. I didn't realize how unusual they are, which might also explain why ours was stolen. We are only there (Greece) roughly 2 weeks in the year, so unfortunately we are wide open to such acts of petty vandalism/thefts. I now regret even more not bringing back cuttings before the theft. I'm sure if our Greek Yellow was small enough, they would have stolen that too. But at least we still have that as a consolation, and now a 'son of yellow' safely growing in England too.

Costas

Np guys glad you liked the story!! The link to the google map actually works btw if you click it even though it cuts off in the text the underlined portion--just click the underlined link.

Costas I just saw your thread--you had white fig too--crazy!!! So it is not a myth--it is now confirmed x 2!! My uncle's story is 30 years old. Neyriz is on my way sometimes when I'm visiting Iran so I have no problem asking the locals what's the news on the white Shah-anjeer if any tree remains. It is good to hear it exists in Greece too!!!!!!!! This White one had remarkable taste favorite of the locals. Was your White also amazing for taste too? Do you know it's source what part of Greece it came from?

Man so many amazing fruit varieties need to be preserved before it is too late. Reminds me of Dr. Levin's work on pomegranate... breaks my heart. Glad UC Davis could hang on to some of his best pomegranates (no FMV in the pom collection there :D) before it was too late.

We need to preserve all these figs. Seriously. Jon is doing the world an incredibly important service.

This is so great! I would suspect that Iran has one of most interesting fig cultures in the world. The pictures of Iran's gardens and countrysides are so beautiful! Maybe in LA, some of the Iranian immigrants have native fig plants in their yard.

Yes, thanks for sharing.  I had no idea that truly white figs existed.

Can you ask someone from the town to send you a picture?

So P (what name would you like to be called?  Persianmd2orchard is so long to type :-).  Anyway P, it sure would be great if somehow some way if you're there, if you could find a way to propagate this.  It's a great story, and it'd be great to know that the cultivar can live on too.  Thanks for sharing the story.

Mike   central NY state, zone 5a

We could find a volunteer to head over and we all can pitch in for travel expenses for cuttings in return. :)