Ficus masonii
Horne ex Baker,
Nunu, Masimasi
Wikimedia Commons - R. O. Gardner
What to Eat
Edible parts: Fruit, Leaves
Fruit - cooked. The fruit, which turn from green or yellow to deep red when mature, is usually borne in clusters on the trunk and branchlets.
Where to Find It
A tropical plant. In Fiji it grows from sea level to 1,150 m altitude. It is usually in dense forest.
Fiji*, Pacific,
How to Identify
A fig. It is a shrub or slender tree. It can grow 2-15 m high. It has white latex. The figs are green or yellow but turn deep red as they ripen. They are usually in clusters on the trunks or branches. Figs occur throughout the year.
How to Grow
The fruits are produced all year round. Fig trees have a unique form of fertilization, each species relying on a single, highly specialized species of wasp that is itself totaly dependant upon that fig species in order to breed. The trees produce three types of flower; male, a long-styled female and a short-styled female flower, often called the gall flower. All three types of flower are contained within the structure we usually think of as the fruit. The female fig wasp enters a fig and lays its eggs on the short styled female flowers while pollinating the long styled female flowers. Wingless male fig wasps emerge first, inseminate the emerging females and then bore exit tunnels out of the fig for the winged females. Females emerge, collect pollen from the male flowers and fly off in search of figs whose female flowers are receptive. In order to support a population of its pollinator, individuals of a Ficus spp. must flower asynchronously. A population must exceed a critical minimum size to ensure that at any time of the year at least some plants have overlap of emmission and reception of fig wasps. Without this temporal overlap the short-lived pollinator wasps will go locally extinct.
Medicinal Uses
The mashed leaves are used as a poultice on hives and for sores and boils.
Notes
There are about 800-1000 Ficus species. They are mostly in the tropics. There are 120 Ficus species in tropical America.
Names & Synonyms
References (5)
- Altschul, S.V.R., 1973, Drugs and Foods from Little-known Plants. Notes in Harvard University Herbaria. Harvard Univ. Press. Massachusetts. no. 730
- Flora Vitiensis Nova Vol 2 p 184
- Franklin, J., Keppel, G., & Whistler, W., 2008, The vegetation and flora of Lakeba, Nayau and Aiwa Islands, Central Lau Group, Fiji. Micronesica 40(1/2): 169–225, 2008
- Smith, A.C., 1981, Flora Vitiensis Nova: A New flora of Fiji, Hawai Botanical Gardens, USA Vol 2 p 184
- Walter, A. & Sam C., 2002, Fruits of Oceania. ACIAR Monograph No. 85. Canberra. p 279
