Common Name:

General Information

Ficus americana is an evergreen plant; it can vary in habit from a large-crowned epiphytic shrub growing up to 6 metres tall on the branch of a tree, to a tree with a dense, spreading crown up to 15 metres tall growing in the soil. The bole can be 30cm in diameter[, ].
The tree is sometimes harvested from the wild for local medicinal use.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

S. America - Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, the Guyanas; C. America - Panama to southern Mexico; throughout the Caribbean.

Habitat

Water courses, savannah margins, in ridge, rain and mountain savannah, and montane forests, especially in swampy places[].

Properties

Medicinal Rating
Habit	Evergreen Tree
Height	8.00 m
Pollinators	Wasps
Cultivation Status	Wild

Cultivation Details

The tree probably flowers and produces fruit all year round in Puerto Rico[].
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 from the stems is taken internally to relieve a sore stomach[].
The latex is used externally in a plaster to soothe abdominal pains[].

Other Uses

The sapwood is whitish and soft. The wood is soft, fairly light in weight, weak, and not durable. It is used for posts[].
The wood is used for fuel[].

Propagation

Seed -

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