Common Name:

General Information

Ficus subtrinervia ranges in height from a shrub a few metres tall up to a large canopy tree that can be 40 metres tall. In larger specimens the crown is dense and spreading. The straight, cylindrical bole can be 60 - 70cm in diameter and unbranched for up to 20 metres; it has buttresses that are up ro 130cm high[, ].
The tree is sometimes harvested from the wild for local use as a medicine and source of fibre.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

Australasia - New Guinea to the Bismarck Archipelago.

Habitat

A subcanopy to large canopy tree in lowland to submontane forest, commonly on river banks and in stony river beds, at elevations up to 1,200 metres[, , ].

Properties

Medicinal Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	12.00 m
Pollinators	Wasps
Cultivation Status	Wild

Cultivation Details

The plant often commences flowering when still only 2 - 3 metres tall[].
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 leaves are chewed and swallowed to relieve diarrhoea[].

Other Uses

The bark is a source of fibre. It is used for making clothing[].

Propagation

Seed -

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