Common Name:

General Information

Ficus storckii is an often slender shrub or tree that can grow from 3 - 18 metres tall[].
The tree is sometimes harvested from the wild for local use as a food and source of materials

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

Pacific - New Hebrides and Fiji.

Habitat

Dense or dry forest or on its edges or in thickets, at elevations from sea level to 600 metres[].

Properties

Edibility Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	12.00 m
Pollinators	Wasps
Cultivation Status	Wild

Cultivation Details

Ripe fruits are produced all year round[].
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

Young leaves - cooked and eaten as a vegetable[]. There is a single record of this use[].

The edible fruit of this specie of ficus is often at first yellow, and then changes to a bright orange, red, or purple, to 15mm[, ].

Medicinal

None known

Other Uses

The leaves have a rough surface and are sometimes used as a substitute for sandpaper and for scouring pots and pans[, ].

The bark is fibrous. We have no specific information for this species, but the fibre is likely to be used for making cordage, possibly cloth and maybe also to make tapa bark cloth[].

The fibrous branches used to clean teeth[].

The leaves of some species are used to wrap food for cooking[].

The wood of plants in this genus is usually of low quality, light in weight, soft and not very durable. It is sometimes used for purposes such as light construction, digging sticks, yam stakes, etc.
The wood is also used for fuel and sometimes for making fire by friction[].

Propagation

Seed -

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