Common Name:

General Information

Ficus adenosperma is a shrub or a tree that can grow from 6 - 20 metres tall. The straight, cylindrical bole can be 11 - 20cm in diameter and unbranched for around 2 metres[, ].
The tree is harvested from the wild for local use as a medicine and source of a low quality wood.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

,

Range

Southeast Asia - Indonesia to New Guinea, north Australia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu.

Habitat

Dense primary and also in more open positions in secondary forest, chiefly near rivers, often developing thickets on sandbanks and islands; at elevations up to 2,500 metres[, ].

Properties

Medicinal Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	15.00 m
Pollinators	Wasps
Cultivation Status	Wild

Cultivation Details

The plant is able to withstand occasional inundation of the soil and fast-flowing currents[].
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, combined with an equal amount of the latex from Artocarpus altilis, is drunk as a treatment for menorrhagia[].
The latex from the leaves is applied topically to sores and scabies[].

The fresh roots are chewed to treat malaria[].

Other Uses

The timber, which is of poor quality, has been used for house building[].

Propagation

Seed -

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