Ficus melinocarpa
Blume
(c) Chun Xing Wong, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Chun Xing Wong
(c) Chun Xing Wong, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Known Hazards
Where to Find It
It is a tropical plant.
Asia, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, PNG, SE Asia, Solomon Islands,
How to Identify
A tree. It grows 35 m tall. It has buttresses 4 m tall.
How to Grow
The branches often become hollow and are said to afford nesting sites for ants, who then protect the tree from insect attack. 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.
Other Uses
The wood is of low quality, but is used for temporary construction, mouldings, interior work, drawers, laundry tubs, fruit crates etc. The wood is used for fuel.
Names & Synonyms
References (1)
- World Checklist of Useful Plant Species 2020. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
