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 enre (smooth leaf margins) • Most ssues have white or yellowish latex Parts of a Leaf Blade Axillary PeBole Bud leaf stalk Spules 2 appendages at the base of the peBole Ficus Spules • Paired spules (form ringed scars around each node) Paired SBpules Ring scar at node Paired Spules Rubber Tree (Ficus elasca) Paired spules fused into one falling in as a single unit Ficus Leaf Diversity Ficus Roots and Stems • Cauliflory • Aerial Roots HemiepiphyBc 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 • Oen the sole remnants of cleared forests - worthless wood • Oen important primary colonizers • Year-round fruit producon • Many birds and mammals (especially bats) thrive on a diet composed almost enrely of figs • Seeds are dispersed over great distances (some > 100 km2) Ficus carica - Edible Fig Ficus capensis - Cape Fig Ficus auriculata - Roxburgh Fig Ficus ReproducBon • Flowers are borne inside a hollow stem (syconium), with a hole at the end (osBole) • 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 osole • Wings and antennae are oen 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 sll in the flowers • Males chew the osole wide open, then die • Ferlized 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 nave to southwest Asia and the eastern Mediterranean region (Greece east to Afghanistan) • 9 fossilized figs dang 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. nida Ficus nida Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa) Oaxaca, Mexico Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus microcarpa) Eupris2na ver2cillata Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) Rusty leaf fig (Ficus rubiginosa) Rusty leaf fig (Ficus rubiginosa) .