Fig Trees (The Genus Ficus) The Figs (Ficus spp.) • 750-900 species • Free standing trees and shrubs, vines, and hemiepiphytes (stranglers and banyans) Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) Roxburgh Fig (Ficus auriculata) Highland Breadfruit (Ficus dammaropsis) Creeping Fig (Ficus pumila) Creeping Fig (Ficus pumila) The Figs (Ficus spp.) • Tropical, subtropics, and a few species in warm temperate and Mediterranean zones • Diversity of habitats - rainforest understories and canopies, savannas, riversides, xeric cliff faces Ficus Leaves • Leaves are evergreen and en re (smooth leaf margins) • Most ssues have white or yellowish latex Parts of a Leaf Blade
Axillary Pe ole Bud leaf stalk
S pules 2 appendages at the base of the pe ole Ficus S pules • Paired s pules (form ringed scars around each node) Paired S pules
Ring scar at node Paired S pules Rubber Tree (Ficus elas ca)
Paired s pules fused into one falling in as a single unit Ficus Leaf Diversity Ficus Roots and Stems • Cauliflory • Aerial Roots
Hemiepiphy c Strangling Habit
• Some figs begin life as epiphytes • Send aerial roots to the ground • Roots grown downward, around the host trunk Figs Ecology • Important, keystone tropical trees • O en the sole remnants of cleared forests - worthless wood • O en important primary colonizers • Year-round fruit produc on • Many birds and mammals (especially bats) thrive on a diet composed almost en rely of figs • Seeds are dispersed over great distances (some > 100 km2) Ficus carica - Edible Fig
Ficus capensis - Cape Fig
Ficus auriculata - Roxburgh Fig Ficus Reproduc on • Flowers are borne inside a hollow stem (syconium), with a hole at the end (os ole) • Figs are monoecious or dioecious Ficus inflorescence structure
Individual flowers Ficus inflorescence structure Fig Wasp Pollinators • Figs are pollinated by small wasps (Chalcidoidea: Agaonidae; more than 700 species-specific couples) • Female wasps enter the syconium through the os ole • Wings and antennae are o en stripped off • Female wasps carry pollen from the syconium where she was born • She lays eggs, then pollinates the Pollen pocket, containing pollen grains, on the thorax of a Nigeriella female. flowers, then dies Scale bar = 0.1mm. Fig Wasp Pollinators • Wingless males emerge from the flowers first and mate with the females while they’re s ll in the flowers • Males chew the os ole wide open, then die • Fer lized females collect pollen or are dusted with pollen • They exit the syconium and fly to a new one Style length can vary in female flowers: longer styles – seed development shorter styles – wasp growth Figs Edible Fig (Ficus carica) Edible Fig (Ficus carica) • Large, deciduous, shrub or small tree na ve to southwest Asia and the eastern Mediterranean region (Greece east to Afghanistan) • 9 fossilized figs da ng to about 9000 BC were found in the Jordan Valley • Most commerce is in dried figs Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa) Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa) Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa) Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa)
Ficus microcarpa var. microcarpa Ficus microcarpa var. retusa Ficus retusa Ficus microcarpa var. ni da Ficus ni da Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa)
Oaxaca, Mexico Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa)
Eupris na ver cillata Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) Rusty leaf fig (Ficus rubiginosa) Rusty leaf fig (Ficus rubiginosa)