Common Name:

General Information

Ficus theophrastoides is a slender, often unbranched tree; it can grow up to 5 metres tall. The bole is hardly more than 8cm in diameter[].
The tree is sometimes harvested from the wild for local medicinal use.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

Pacific - Solomon Islands, Fiji.

Habitat

Forest, in clearings, or along the strand, at elevations up to 150 metres[].

Properties

Medicinal Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	4.00 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 stem is considered part of an internal remedy for treating convulsions in children[].

Other Uses

None known

Propagation

Seed -

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