Common Name:

General Information

Ficus mathewsii is a tree with a flat or spreading crown; it can be quite small in size or can grow up to 24 metres tall. The bole is straight, or fairly so; it can be round or compressed, up to 50cm in diameter and unbranched for 1.8 - 5.4 metres[].
The tree is harvested from the wild for local use as a medicine and source of latex.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

S. America - Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana.

Habitat

Dry loam along the edges of paths or on the margins of forest[].

Properties

Medicinal Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	0.00 m
Pollinators	Wasps
Cultivation Status	Wild

Cultivation Details

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[].

Edible Uses

None known

Medicinal

The latex is used to make a plaster[].

Other Uses

When cut, the bark secretes a fairly copious quantity of slightly sweet latex, white when freshly tapped, but soon turning to pale pink on exposure to sunlight. Known locally as 'ule' or 'mile', it is mixed with balata to improve the consistency of the latter. The latex coagulates readily when worked between the palms of the hands[].

The heartwood is reddish brown and thin; the sapwood creamy yellow or pale brown, with extensive grayish patches, and in some specimens with dark gum striping. Medium or rather coarse-textured; straight or moderately straight-grained; odourless and tasteless; inclined to be fibrous. The wood is easy to work, but has no recorded uses[]..

Propagation

Seed -

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