Common Name:

General Information

Ficus calopilina is a stiffly-branched tree growing up to 15 metres tall[, ].
The tree is sometimes harvested from the wild for local use as a foo, medicine and source of fibre.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

Australasia - New Guinea.

Habitat

Locally common in primary or secondary montane forest, often along the sides of streams; at elevations from 1,000 - 2,400 metres[, ].

Properties

Edibility Rating
Medicinal Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	12.00 m
Pollinators	Wasps
Self-fertile	No
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[].
A dioecious species, both male and female forms need to be grown if fruit and seed are required[].

Edible Uses

Fruit - raw[, ]. Edible but tasteless[, ]. The yellow to brown, subglobose to pear-shaped fruit can be 40 - 60mm in diameter[].

Medicinal

The fruit latex is used to cover sores; the sores are subsequently covered by a leaf of the same plant[].

Agroforestry Uses:

A fibre obtained from the bark is used to make twine[, ].

Other Uses

None known

Propagation

Seed -

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Captcha: if i have 3 bananas, and i eat them all, how many bananas did i just eat?