Hi Folks Happy Spring 2015,

Question for you,

I bought a black Madeira fig tree from Just Fruits and Exotics plant nursery last year it has finally begun to sprout leaves. The leaves on this tree do not have the characteristic wide palm shaped leaves that I have seen of black Madeira trees pictures such as from this forum's member pics. This includes the now rooted cutting that I got from UC Davis. My UC Davis BM does have the characteristic palm shaped leaf. The tree in question from Just Fruits and Exotics has a cross like shaped set of three leaf lobes on the leaf instead of one round palm shape I'm wondering if I have a variance of a black Madeira fig tree (trying to remain hopeful) or if I simply do not have a black Madeira fig tree (bummer).
If someone can please tell me how to post a picture I'll be glad to do it.

Thanks in advance.

Would you happen to have any pictures? It's difficult to say from description alone.

My Black Maderia started from an Encanto cutting has wide leaves and shallow lobes, if that helps any.

Lucky you to be able to get an established BM from a reputable place like that. Post a pic please but I wouldn't rush to panic! Young leaves on trees that come out of dormancy can be very illusive! Imagine if it turns out to be a Preto instead? Lol
happy growing.

Thanks for responding DatesNFigs,
Your leaf description sounds like what I've seen to be typical for Black Maderias.

Sadly, I don't know how to post a picture on this forum it's not really clear on this site.

On the bottom of the reply box ,press "more reply option" and then attach file.

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/violeta-still-strong-6569728?highlight=violeta&pid=1281525606#post1281525606

Hello potatochips .. Thank you for your wishes.
This link does not lead you to a description of Black Madeira as such.. but to a report on the fruiting and leaves as well, from the 'father' of Black Madeira, the Portuguese Common variety Violeta.
I am strongly convinced that Black Madeira is synonymous to Violeta.
There you have the various contours of their leaves as well as the fruit.

Francisco
Portugal

These are the three main leaf shapes on my Black Madeira: [URL=http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/Salmon_Slam/media/figs/2015Apr26/20150429_192724.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015Apr26/20150429_192724.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/Salmon_Slam/media/figs/2015Apr26/20150429_192641.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015Apr26/20150429_192641.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/Salmon_Slam/media/figs/2015Apr26/20150429_192711.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015Apr26/20150429_192711.jpg[/IMG][/URL] The single lobe is the most common by far, especially on my older 6ft tree.

Any tree can have single lobes leaves: they seem to be some sort of juvenile shape. Some trees have lots, some not so much, some seldom.

See Here  They can range from 3 lobes to 3 plus 2 semi-lobes in my experience, but need to have "fat" fingers. You may need to wait till the plant is a little more mature.

The leaves on Black Madeira should look like this.

 
 
 
 
 

Joe your Black Maderia is looking amazing, such vigorous growth for a tree that is a notorious slow grower. How many years have you had it for?

Thanks to all of you for your kind, helpful responses. I really appreciate the care and efforts you all make on this forum to keep the culture and passion of fig growing a viable and satisfying endeavour.

Hope this link for my tree works...

http://s610.photobucket.com/user/liveforgodsglory/library/Mobile%20Uploads

It's really too early to tell.  I have 3 of JF&E's Black Madeiras growing in large SWPs.  Black Maderia is a true dwarf so it will be interesting to see how these trees grow.  I did call and talk to the owner of JF&E about their Black Maderia fig.  He said it came from a very reliable source and is really a Black Maderia fig.  More to come....

Thanks Snaglpus, please do keep us updated. Due to replies shared on this post, I have seen some BMs with wide single lobes as well as three "fingers"vatieties. The one with three fingers tended to be "fat" like Jon indicated so maybe all is well.
Do yours B. Mad. leaves look like mine?

Thanks Drew. I got that tree in the spring of 2011. It was a rooted air layer from Encanto Farms. I fertilize the trees in the spring with compost. They have full sun and get a good watering every 4th day. Most of the trees respond real well.

I am a little worried about my Black Madeira at this point.  I got it from a local guy, who got it from another local guy lol....But the leaves don't look right to me.  The figs are developing slowly which is promising since it is known to take a long season.  But the leaves do not look right at all to me.  I will post pics when I can get some and let the experts say what they think...the tree is still young though, so maybe the leaves are just misshapen, or maybe I am over reacting...

I'm skeptical that the Just Fruits and Exotics Black Madeira is the same as the UCD Black Madeira.  Even with just rooted cuttings of the UCD B.M. I have never seen the sort of leaf shape that forum  members show for JFE B.M. so I don't think it is a case of immature leaves.  

So then I may have the JF&E B Mad and not the UCD B Mad...I wonder how different the fruits are....

Black Madeira leaves are very distinct. Spade shape and some three lobe mixed in. Slow growing if from uc davis.there are pics of jf&e bmadeira and leaves are way off. Although it could be a great fig if it is from island of Madeira as stated.

Well time will have to tell. My JF&E B.M. hardly has any spade shaped leaves- most of it's leaves are finger shaped whereas, my 2014 rooted cutting B.M. from UCD only has spade shaped leaves.
Would be nice if the JF&E were a earlier fruiting strain or something but, at this point I don't see any fruit babies on it as yet. I did get it late fall of 2014 so maybe it'll do more next year. Just for comparison in age, height and production, I mention my Smith fig tree. My JF&E B.M. is about as tall (3 1/2 - 4 ft tall) as my Smith fig which I got it last year from JF&E. Last year the Smith barely pushed out three little figs they hardly ripened but they still tasted nice fruity, not clasically figgy in flavor and surprisingly sweet. They were kind of hard and still small but I couldn't let them drop with out trying them out. The Smith is supposed to be a late ripening tree and it does have plenty of fruit babies on it right now and like the JF&E BM, is in a seven gallon container.
So maybe the JF&E will do similarly as far as production goes.

Here is my Black Madeira...thoughts on leaves? They look a little fatter fingered than I thought, but still not quite right to me...

Not Black Madeira. Leaves are definitely wrong.

Agree - definitely not a UCD Black Madeira.

Then maybe a JF&E Black Madeira?  I guess I need to leave Black Madeira on my wish list until I acquire a UCD Black Madeira.  Thanks for the info fellas...

I am sure that what JFE is selling is NOT Black Madeira. Please do not call it JFE Black Madeira or anything similar as it will just cause confusion and likely mistakes in trading. Once some of our JFE trees ripen, we can figure out what they are. I should get some updated pics soon from my brother in law in Georgia. As of a couple of weeks ago, his figs were still pretty small, but I imagine he is a good month ahead of most of us.

Here are the pics from a couple of weeks ago of my Brother's tree from JFE... [Img]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015May27/20150601_155014.jpg[/IMG] [Img]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015May27/20150601_154951.jpg[/img]

Looks mighty familiar lol. Well my tree came apparently from ebay, and now I suspect that it originated from jfe...

I reached out to JFE via email and will update everyone if I hear anything back.

Good luck.  I agree, does not look like BM leaves.

Wow!  You guys crack me up!  Did you guys read all the comments from beginning to the end?  Did you look at the leaves posted by KK?

Lol that's funny. My reason for not thinking its BM is the lack of spade and three lobed leaves shown in pictures. As long as we are comparing UC Davis specimen.

I have two from JF&E and the leaves look VERY much like the ones KK posted.

The JF&E is not UCDavis black Madeira in my opinion.  You have to ask yourself how they could produce enough plants for retail sale when it is hard enough getting cuttings and then getting them to a mature enough size so you can produce more cuttings.  If they bought cuttings on ebay for top dollar they would not just turn around and sell a successfully rooted cutting at a low price.  If they are using tissue culture it still takes time to produce a plant.  It's a relatively short period of time that has passed that this has become a popular variety to have.  

Ok I have an update. Brandy at JF&E contacted me today in repsonse to my email. She was extremely nice and very upset about the mix up. She provided me a copy of her USDA receipt from 2008, to show the authenticity of their Black Madeira. She also provided a picture of their mother plant: [URL=http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/Salmon_Slam/media/figs/2015Jun18/Black%20Maderia%20mother%20stock%201.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015Jun18/Black%20Maderia%20mother%20stock%201.jpg[/IMG][/URL] There were also two pictures of child plants: [URL=http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/Salmon_Slam/media/figs/2015Jun18/Black%20Maderia%20mother%20stock.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015Jun18/Black%20Maderia%20mother%20stock.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s1048.photobucket.com/user/Salmon_Slam/media/figs/2015Jun18/Black%20Maderia.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s378/Salmon_Slam/figs/2015Jun18/Black%20Maderia.jpg[/IMG][/URL] The pictures she provided look exactly like Black Madeira. Brandy was also very insistent that JF&E has a strong "true to name" gaurantee. I told her my Brother's tree was healthy, so no need for a refund, but that I would like to purchase another true Black Madeira. She insisted that I not pay since I did not get the correct variety. Mistakes happen. Sometimes cuttings get dropped, swapped, confused, etc. The important thing is once realized, the seller makes good. Two important things to note: 1) JF&E appears to have a true Black Madeira UCD 2) There was a mixup with at least a couple of their trees 3) They are willing to ensure their customers are happy I will report back when I receive the replacement tree next week.

Dennis, glad you are having fun and laughing! :)

Keith posted photos of various leaf shapes but not a description/story behind that photo.  It's definitely hard to say anything for sure just based on leaf shape but apparent discrepancies should not be ignored.  I mostly have spade and 3 lobe leaves on the three BM trees I have in ground (as well as the two Figo Preto).  The leaves posted by Nick in post #26 are consistently different than what we have come to expect for BM.  I think keeping an open mind is good but I think it is good to have an open discussion of observations.

I have had my fair share of leaf shape surprises of other varieties.  One friend who is growing a tree acquired from me mentioned recently that the leaf shape is different this year than last.  I started a thread last year asking for input on ideas of things that might affect leaf shape.  Essentially no progress was made with that discussion.

Nick, thanks for the update.  Good to hear that JF&E takes a great approach on the true to name guarantee.

Harvey, at the risk of taking this thread a bit off topic my CdDN cutting rooted in Winter 2014 had spade (single lobed) leaves all during its first season and at the beginning of this season. Within the past month it transitioned to 5 lobed leaves characteristic of a Col de Dame.  I've never heard of UCD Black Madeira doing this this and haven't observed it in my own tree (though very early on there does seem to be a transition from single lobed to three-lobed leaves).  Then again, it's hard to totally rule out at this juncture that there is something about the way JF&E is propagating their trees that causes leaf morphology to change.  I'll believe it when I see it.  It will be interesting to see what the fruit looks like from the JF&E trees.

Steve, that's the sort of thing I was talking about.  Still, based on Phil's comments at http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1285126587&postcount=4 I'd say the odds are against it just being a change in leaf shape.

[QUOTE=strudeldog]

Last year JF&E had some young Black Madeira started that I am pretty certain were not as Labeled.  I think highly of the nursery and have bought a lot of plants from them, but I just want to put some input here. I was there last fall in their growing area and saw a couple small weak 3 gal BM that looked correct.  I asked Brandy the owner about them, and she said had a bunch of better ones. When she showed them to me I told her those sure didn’t look like BM. The wood for these she had obtained from someone else that she listed by name. I don’t know the person, but am familiar with their name from NAFEX and SFF, as far as I know never saw them on the fig forums. Brandy also showed me a potted mother tree they had started from UC Davis USDA, and it looked correct. The couple weaker looking plants were not with the other young plants and the started dates that JF&E uses on their tags was older. I purchased one of these and this year it was dead on to my own BM started from UC Davis.  At that time I was there I convinced Brandy after she did some looking online that the others were not BM and she was going to remove the BM Labeling.  I obviously can't’state for certain what they have now is not true, and sure don’t want to badmouth a nursery where I have spent more money than any other, and will purchase from again. The person Brandy got the cuttings from is respected as well, but we all know how easy it is to obtain a mislabeled fig, so just putting this out there so folks are not surprised if they turn out not true. 

Update on my Black Madeira Mystery
The Black Madiera that I got from JF & E has been confirmed not to be an actual Black Madeira.
I wrote them with my inquiry and sent them some pictures and Brandy graciously and sadly confirmed my suspicions.
At the moment we don't know what tree this imposter fig is but, at least its leaves don't look like any of my Brown Turkey's so, I'll keep it and pet it until it bears something tangible. :)
They are working on making this right so, I'm willing to be patient.

Mistakes happen and some vendors would rather fight than make good.

Glad JF& E is at least trying to make good.

Fig collecting is not for the easily dismayed.

I've emailed them also with pictures of my 2 I bought from them. Will update on response to the situation. I should note it's my first mix up with them in over 4 years and close to a thousand dollars spent at their nursery.

This goes out to all the people that have bought Black Madeira figs from our nursery Just Fruits and Exotics. We would like to apologize for the mix up with the Black Madeira figs last year. It is our policy to only sell true to name fruit trees and our reputation relies on it. We have contacted all of the people that received figs from us that we were able to locate, to offer refunds. If there are any we missed, please contact us so that we can rectify the problem. We have been selling fruit trees for over 37 years and have a good track record for getting it right. When we don’t get it right we own up to it and work to make it right. We’d like to thank all the people that have made positive comments on this thread about us. We hope to serve you in the future.

Thanks Brandy!   A real class act!

Just F & E is a great source for plants, very trustworthy and honest. Just be happy your plants did not come from one of the infamous nurseries in Georgia. I have received plants/trees that never came out of dormancy(dead) or if they did, I had no clue of their true identity. Their policies for refunds or replacements cost more than if you purchased locally and the nursery knows most buyers will chalk up the loss.

Is anyone here who can share me a BM or sell it to me in a lower price?