Common Name:

General Information

Ficus verruculosa is a shrub or a weak-stemmed, sparsely branched small tree[]. It usually grows no more than 2.5 metres tall, with some specimens up to 5 metres and occasional plants up to 12 metres[].
The edible fruit is sometimes harvested from the wild for local use.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

Africa - Nigeria to Uganda and Kenya, south to Angola, Namibia and S. Africa.

Habitat

Stream-banks and marshy ground[]. Riverine vegetation, grassland near water and swamp forest margins, sometimes forming thickets[].

Properties

Edibility Rating
Habit	Shrub
Height	2.50 m
Pollinators	Wasps
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[].

Edible Uses

Ripe fruits[]. The figs are produced in pairs, sometimes 4 together. The subglobose to ellipsoid fruit is 5 - 20mm in diameter when fresh[].

Medicinal

None known

Other Uses

None known

Propagation

Seed -

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