Ficus Genus [Fig Trees]

Figs form an ancient pan-tropical genus of over 850 species of trees and shrubs that are keystone species in rainforest ecosystems. They may have been the first plant cultivated by humans and play an important role in all of the major religions of the world. They are the focus of this university dissertation written by Professor Carl Peter Thunberg. In 18th- and 19th-century Europe, professors wrote the dissertations; the student’s job was to explicate and defend it and pay for its publication. The Smithsonian Libraries holds dozens of these botanical and zoological papers by the great systematist Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) at the University of Uppsala and his student and successor Thunberg.