In a study initiated at the Faculty of Comparative Botany of the Attic, several researchers have begun attempting to determine exactly what the term fig-flower means.
The initial hypotheses include several possibilities:
- that it is a fig;
- that it is a flower;
- that it is a mixture of the two;
- or that it refers to a silly woman, a possibility some researchers consider premature but which has not yet been ruled out.
After several years of study, a group of German scholars has reached a provisional conclusion:
The fig-flower is an inverted flower.
The proposal has caused considerable controversy among French specialists, who maintain that:
Une figue est une figue, c’est tout.
The German researchers have insisted that their conclusion is based on strictly botanical criteria.
The French have requested that it first be defined exactly what is meant by “inverted.”
The discussion remains open.
