Common Name:

General Information

Ficus parietalis is a shrub or climbing plant when young, often becoming a tree 12 metres or more tall as it grows older. The bole can be 35cm in diameter. It often starts life as an epiphyte in the branch of a tree and can eventually send down aerial roots that, once they reach the ground, provide extra nutrients that help the plant grow more vigorously. These aerial roots can completely encircle the trunk of the host tree, constricting its growth - this, coupled with the more vigorous top growth, can lead to the fig outcompeting and killing the tree in which it is growing[, , ].
The plant is sometimes harvested from the wild for local use as a food and medicine. A very handsome plant, it is suitable for use as an ornamental[].

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

Southeast Asia - Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines.

Habitat

An understorey plant, common in lowland forest, often on riversides, at elevations up to 1,000 metres[, ]. In disturbed to undisturbed (open) mixed dipterocarp and sub-montane forests, at elevations up to 1,500 metres[].

Properties

Edibility Rating
Medicinal Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	0.00 m
Cultivation Status	Ornamental, Wild

Cultivation Details

Often found on sandy soils in the wild[].
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

Fruit - raw[]. The yellow-orange-red, globose fruits are around 13 - 24mm in diameter[, ].

Medicinal

A decoction of the roots is used to treat stomach-ache[].

Other Uses

None known

Propagation

Seed -

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