Ficus abutilifolia

Cultivation Details

A plant of the dry to wet, lowland tropics, where it is found at elevations up to 500 metres. It grows best in areas where annual daytime temperatures are within the range 18 - 25°c, but can tolerate 14 - 30°c^[1]. Able to tolerate light frosts^[2], it can be killed by temperatures of -1°c or lower^[1]. It prefers a mean annual rainfall in the range 400 - 2,500mm, but tolerates 250 - 3,000mm^[1]. Requires a sunny position^[1]. Prefers a light, moderately fertile, well-drained soil^[1]. Prefers a pH in the range 6 - 6.5, tolerating 5.5 - 7^[1]. Plants can produce roots up to 60 metres long, these seeking out sources of underground water and making the plant very drought tolerant^[2]. The plant can flower all year round^[3]. 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^[4].