This fig was brought to the Pittsburgh area by a woman from the village of Trabia, Sicily, a small village on the coast a few miles east of Palermo, over a hundred years ago. It has been in this woman’s family ever since, passed down as suckers or cuttings from the original plant and grown in a few locations around Pittsburgh. I received it 5 years ago as green cuttings from a friend with the plant, a neighbor of the woman’s granddaughter. I was fortunately able to meet this family member in 2019 and obtain the history and information about this fig. They have never had a name for the fig, and agreed with me naming it after the Sicilian village where it originated. They know no history of the fig ‘back in the old country’. I originally referred to this as Unknown Point Breeze, named after the Pittsburgh neighborhood where it is currently grown by a descendent of the immigrant who brought it here, and I distributed it to some people under that name, but now that I have the full history, it should be referred to as Trabia.

Trabia seems to have the qualities of a Mt Etna class fig. It has been grown mostly in ground by the family members, generally covering it only with a tarp, with the plant most often freezing to the ground and regrowing to produce very late figs. The years it did not freeze back completely it produced earlier and more abundantly. I have grown it in a SIP for the first year and subsequently in a pot sunken into the ground (moved to storage each winter). The season, leaf and fruit are typical of a Mt Etna class fig when grown in a pot, and it has been among the most productive plants I grow. The fig size may be slightly smaller than other Mt Etna class figs, but I will be getting better comparison to my other similar figs in the coming years as I planted it in the ground last year.