Looking for the immense fig tree in Warm Springs

From George Christian Roeding 1868-1928, A Tribute

This tidbit about fig trees from George Christian Roeding's biography caught my eye. "...there are individual specimen trees that have historic value by reasons of their immense size and heavy cropping. One of these, said to be over one hundred years old, is situated at Warm Springs, in Alameda county, with the trunk girth of seventeen feet, a glorious example of the longevity of the fig tree and a noble testimony to the vision and achievement of the Mission era of California in the founding of what has become the greatest fig producing section of the western world."


Seventeen feet! That's about three adults encircling the trunk with their arms.

Where is this tree today? Does it still exist? It would be about 200 years old now.

I asked our local tree expert, Nelson, and he suggested the fig tree at Rancho Higuera in Warm Springs.

And now I find out that Rancho Higuera literally means "Fig Ranch"! 

More clues came from Ira Condit, 1955. He mentions in his book, "Another and older tree, still growing on the William Curtner place near Mission San Jose, is reported to have been planted about 1800." Is this the same place that George Roeding visited? If it was planted in 1800, that would have been shortly after the founding of the Mission. More likely the Rancho period 1830s?

This interpretive panel outside the Rancho Higuera says that the Curtner family owned the property!

So this spring I visited Rancho Higuera.

Is this it? The main trunk seems to have disappeared and branches taken over.

Mission San Jose had fig trees during the time of the Mission fathers. In my time, Fig Tree gas had a fig tree. There was an old fig tree outside of the old admin building at Ohlone College with wonderful figs. The mission had an ancient fig tree that was covered over for a parking lot. Those are all gone now. Many fig trees were cut down because of the "litter" problem that they caused. 

Can this old tree start a new generation of historic figs around the mission?

References

• How I found out that Higuera means Fig.
• Gustav Eisen's book "The fig: its history, culture, and curing, with a descriptive catalogue of the known varieties of figs"
• Ficus carica is an invasive plant in California. Seedlings are found along creeks near the mission in Fremont.
• FIG VARIETIES: A MONOGRAPH,  Ira J. Condit -- Page 427, Robert Gallegos of Mission San José had Bourjassotte Grisé. Page 438, Condit says “The Franciscana is a black fig commonly grown at Estepona, over sixty miles below Málaga, on the coast. Dried figs of this variety seen at Motril appeared to be identical to the California Mission.”  Page 439: "Another and older tree, still growing on the William Curtner place near Mission San Jose, is reported to have been planted about 1800." Was the adobe on Curtner's place?
• Fig History in the New World
• From the Monthly Bulletin of the State Commission of Horticulture, Volume VIII, No. 5, May 1919 (on drive)