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Angelique Fig
Scientific Name: Ficus carica cv.
Common Name: Angelique Fig
In 1790, Thomas Jefferson planted the "White Angelic Fig" in an area "under the garden wall."1 He referred to this area as the "submural beds," where the plants had a warm, south-facing microclimate necessary to bear fruit. This fig is a French variety grown outside of Paris, seen by Jefferson while living there, and brought over to Monticello.2 However, there is no further mention of this particular fig as Jefferson seemed to prefer the Marseilles fig.3
In general, Jefferson had success in growing figs in Virginia.4 Figs were sometimes difficult to harvest in colder climates compared with the Deep South, so he provided protective covering for his own plants. He planted them as early as 1769 in the orchard and included figs in a 1774 South Orchard plan.5
The Angelique fig is a half hardy, deciduous shrub that produces large, sweet fruits with cream-colored flesh and greenish-white, darkly striped skin in late summer and fall.
- Peggy Cornett, n.d.
Further Sources
- Betts. Garden Book.
- Dutton, Joan Parry. Plants of Colonial Williamsburg. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg, 1979.
- Hatch, Peter. "Figs 'Vulgar' Fruit or 'Wholesome' Delicacy?" Twinleaf, January 1996.
- Leighton, Ann. American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century. Amherst, Mass.: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986. See p. 231.
- Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants.
- 1. Record of Planting, February 1790, The Thomas Jefferson Papers, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
- 2. Jefferson lists an "Angelic fig" in his baggage shipped from France. List of Baggage Shipped by Jefferson from France, [ca. September 1, 1789], in PTJ, 15:376. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 3. Peter J. Hatch, The Fruits and Fruit Trees of Monticello (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1998), 166.
- 4. Ibid., 161.
- 5. Garden Book, 1766-1824, page 5 and page 28, by Thomas Jefferson [electronic edition], Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2003). See also Hatch, Fruits, 161.