San Piero Fig

San Piero is, according to Ira Condit's fig monograph, the correct historical name for the fig almost universally sold and grown in the United States as "California Brown Turkey" — a genuinely different, separate variety from Eastern/English Brown Turkey, sometimes called Texas Everbearing, despite the overlapping "Brown Turkey" name causing real, persistent confusion among growers. Fig writer Lee Reich has documented sorting through exactly this confusion in his own collection, noting a specimen he had purchased as "Verte" turned out by its bearing habit and fruit appearance to actually be San Piero. The variety carries an unusually large number of documented synonyms, including Black Spanish, San Pedro, Thompson's Improved Brown Turkey, Negro Largo, Douro Black, Aubique Noir, Large Blue, and Lee's Perpetual. The fruit is large, purplish-brown, with good flavor; it is well adapted to California's climate but is not considered hardy enough for most of the American South.