Another next to useless word:
syconium
n.,
pl. 3ni[a 73nc !8 5ModL < Gr sykon, fig6 Bot. a pear-shaped, fleshy, hollow false fruit, as of the fig
Why is the fig a false fruit?
Eat too many of them and they can make you young for your age.
Seriously, wwh, why is the fig a false fruit? It has seeds. Looks like a real fruit to me, though I can't stand the taste of them.
I'm don't knowf botanical definitionn, but a fruit is something edible to promote propagation
of seeds, that is for instance to have animal eat fruit, and deposit seeds a long way from
where it was eaten, with nutrients to help seedling grow.
Offhand, a fig seems to do likewise, but there must be some techicality I don't know about.
Well, figs sure as heck have flesh and they sure as heck have a heckuva lot of seeds, so I don't understand what's false about 'em.
Apropos of Holy Land delicacies, I remember reading a long time ago in National Geographic
about a hobo a very long time ago trying to obtain handout at U.S. Agriculture site in Arizona.
where they had some date palms from seeds stolen in Arabia. When the hobo was denied a
handout, he pointed to the date palms, and said: "I know why you can't get them to produce
any dates." That got him his handout. He was able to tell them that the date palms were
pollinated by a special species of ant, which they hadn't know. So after another trip to Arabia
to steal the right kind of ants, the date palms finally bore fruit.
The date palm story is a lot more interesting than wondering about why the fig is false.
Is there a National Geographic archives on the net so we could read more about this story?
And I would think it would be a terrible idea to introduce a kind of ant here. All kinds of terrible, possible ramifications.
Dear WW: My father had National Geographics from year one up in the attic. On rainy dayx
I used to go up there to read them, as well as looking for very dark brown bare bosomed
soubrettes to admire. That issue was so long ago, I seriously doubt that you could find it
in a month of Sundays.