PLANT MAGIC: FICUS

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

MATTHEW 7:20

dried fruit from a Ficus Pumila vine

Ficus Pumila fruit still clinging to the vine

FICUS PUMILA, commonly known as creeping or climbing fig, is a woody vine in the Mulberry family and cousin to the more common Ficus Carica (common fig). Although native to East Asia, Creeping Fig can be seen all over the place - usually clinging to and destroying wooden fences. They can be a beautiful and quick growing wall covering but are very invasive and hard to get rid of once established. 
This hardy vine produces a small, odd-shaped fruit that somewhat resembles the common fig. The fruit of the Awkeotsang variety is used in Eastern Asia to make a desert known as Aiyu (or Ice) Jelly.  

Nearly every plant known to mankind has been used historically in some sort of spiritual or magical way, and the Fig is no exception. The Fig's most popular historical debut is in the book of Genesis. In the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve supposedly committed the very first sin of humanity and subsequently realized and became ashamed of their nakedness, it was the Fig's leaves they used to cover up. So naturally the act of hiding or covering up one's secrets that may be embarrassing or distasteful has become one of the Fig's prominent characteristics, as seen in many paintings and sculptures that make use of the Fig leaf to cover sexual organs. 

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