Common Name:

General Information

Ficus wassa is a shrub or a tree growing up to 4 metres tall in New Guinea, becoming a small to medium-sized tree that is generally 5 - 8 metres tall in other parts of its range, but up to 20 metres tall in Indonesia[]
The leaves are a commonly used vegetable in New Guinea, the plant also supplies edible fruit, has medicinal uses and is a source of materials. The tree is sometimes cultivated as a food crop in home gardens within the plants native range[].

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

Southeast Asia - Indonesia; through New Guinea to the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Habitat

A forest species, generally preferring open places, at elevations from sea-level to 2,000 metres, occasionally to 2,600 metres[]. Often found in areas of secondary regrowth in New Guinea[].

Properties

Edibility Rating
Medicinal Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	7.00 m
Pollinators	Wasps
Cultivation Status	Cultivated, Wild

Cultivation Details

The plant can commence fruiting whilst still a shrub only 30 - 100cm tall[].
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 - raw or cooked[, ].

Fruits - raw or cooked[, ]. The fruits are cooked and eaten with the young leaves[].
Figs axillary, ramiflorous or cauliflorous, subglobose, 12 - 16mm in diameter, scabridulous, ripening yellow to red and purple[]

Medicinal

The bark is scraped and chewed to give quick relief in dysentery[, ].

The roots are used as a contraceptive[].

Other Uses

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

The fibrous bark is used to make men's head covering[].
The bark is also used to make rope[].

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 -
Cuttings

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