h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Fascinating story of the pollination and propagation of these trees, Willem. Really interesting. I sorta thought that figs grew on palm trees, but DG's grandmother had a fig tree in Memphis. They made the best fig preserves with lemons. I think I must have confused dates with figs.

Hi Elektra, I'm glad you found the article interesting! I happen to love dates as well as figs. We get dates easily here in South Africa ... do you get them over there? Figs, on the other hand, are hard to come by. We used to have a domestic fig tree when we lived in Pretoria. The figs it bore were delicious, and another thing I remember with great fondness is the beauty and wonder of its leaves emerging in Spring! I don't know what it is, but the sheer delicacy and perfectness of those fresh leaves as they formed from the buds is something I will never forget.

Right now I have several different wild fig tree species growing here ... the Sycomore is one that I still don't have ... will never have enough room for it in this yard! I am not much into bonsais ... I want a tree to be able to grow to its full potential.

We have date palm trees growing in people's gardens over here. I think that we might actually have more of the Canary Island date palms than of the proper ones, but we have those too. And we have an indigenous date palm species, the wild date palm, which grows along rivers and by the seaside.