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Ficus benghalensis
Moraceae FAMILY

Ficus benghalensis

Ficus benghalensis

Edibility
2/5
Medicinal
2/5

Safety & Hazards

None known

Cultivation Details

HabitEvergreen Tree
GrowthFast

A plant of the moist tropics and subtropics, where it is found at elevations from 500 - 1,200 metres. It grows best in areas where annual daytime temperatures are within the range 26 - 36°c, but can tolerate 9 - 40°c[1]. Mature plants can be killed by temperatures of -2°c or lower, but young growth will be severely damaged ay -1°c[1]. It prefers a mean annual rainfall in the range 1,000 - 2,500mm, but tolerates 500 - 4,000mm[1]. Young plants are quite shade tolerant, but require increasing amounts of sunshine as they grow larger[1]. Prefers a fertile, light to medium soil[2, 1]. Prefers a pH in the range 5.5 - 7, tolerating 4.5 - 8.5[1]. The tree has become naturalized in northeastern Australia, where it is deemed to be invasive[3]. A fast-growing tree[4]. 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[5].

Propagation

Seed - germinates best at a temperature around 20°c[6]. Air layering[6]. Tip cuttings around 4 - 12cm long, taken from lateral branches[6]. Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Ficus+benghalensis>

Pollinators

Wasps

References

  1. [1]Ecocrop — http://ecocrop.fao.org/ecocrop/srv/en/home ↩︎Basic information on a wide range of useful plants, plus details of environmental needs where available.
  2. [2]Tropical Ornamentals; A Guide — Whistler. W. Arthur. · Timber Press Inc. Oregon. · 2000 · ISBN 0-88192-448-2 ↩︎An excellent little guide to some of the more commonly cultivated ornamental plants of the Tropics, often giving some information on the plants other uses.
  3. [3]Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk — http://www.hear.org/pier/scientificnames/index.html ↩︎A very good website detailing weed species that have been introduced into the Pacific Islands.
  4. [4]New Crops FactSheets — Purdue University · http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/default.html ↩︎A website dedicated to giving information on potential new agricultural crops.
  5. [5]Global Invasive Species Database — http://www.issg.org/database/welcome/ ↩︎Very detailed information on almost 400 species (with more being added) of plants that have become weeds in areas outside their native range.
  6. [6]The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. — Huxley. A. · MacMillan Press · 1992 · ISBN 0-333-47494-5 ↩︎Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.
  7. [7]Plants and People of Nepal — Manandhar. N. P. · Timber Press. Oregon. · 2002 · ISBN 0-88192-527-6 ↩︎Excellent book, covering over 1,500 species of useful plants from Nepal together with information on the geography and peoples of Nepal. Good descriptions of the plants with terse notes on their uses.
  8. [8]Mansfeld's Database of Agricultural and Horticultural Plants — http://mansfeld.ipk-gatersleben.de/pls/htmldb_pgrc/f?p=185:3:4292127278597336 ↩︎Terse details of a huge range of useful plants.
  9. [9]Plant Resources of Southeast Asia — http://proseanet.org/ ↩︎Lots of information on the uses of the plants of SE Asia.
  10. [10]Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. — Hedrick. U. P. · Dover Publications · 1972 · ISBN 0-486-20459-6 ↩︎Lots of entries, quite a lot of information in most entries and references.
  11. [11]A Manual of the Timbers of the World — Howard A.L. · MacMillan and Co.; London. · 1934 · http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org ↩︎An excellent and comprehensive book on timbers. Rather dated, but still a main source of information for many of the less known woods. It can be downloaded from the Internet.