Ficus parietalis

Blume

Moraceae Edible: Fruit 37 iNaturalist observations

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Description

A small tree or strangler fig. It grows 12 m tall. The stems have white sap. The leaves are alternate and simple. They are hairy underneath. The fruit are 13 mm across. They can be yellow, orange or red. They are round and along the twigs.

Edible Uses

The fruit are eaten.

Medicinal Uses

A decoction of the roots is used to treat stomach-ache.

Distribution

It is a tropical plant. It grows in open forests and up to 1,500 m above sea level. It is often along rivers and in sandy soil.

Where It Grows

Asia, Indochina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, SE Asia, Thailand,

Cultivation

Often found on sandy soils in the wild. 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.

Synonyms

Ficus cerasiformis Desf.Ficus concentrica Hassk. ex Miq.Ficus grandifolia Wall. ex Miq.Ficus junghuhniana Miq.Ficus parietalis var. angustifolia Miq.Ficus parietalis var. ovalis BlumeFicus parietalis var. rufipila (Miq.) Miq.Ficus parietalis var. tabing (Miq.) Miq.Ficus phlebophylla Miq.Ficus rufipila Miq.Ficus tabing Miq.