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Ficus benjamina
Moraceae FAMILY

Ficus benjamina

Ficus benjamina

Edibility
0/5
Medicinal
0/5

Safety & Hazards

The sap from the plant contains furocoumarins, psoralens and ficin[1]. Frequent contact can cause iching of the eyes, cough, and wheezing; contact and exposure to sunlight can cause skin irritation with itching, redness and stinging. Effects are usually minor or only lasting for a few minutes[1].

Cultivation Details

HabitEvergreen Tree
GrowthFast

Plants are damaged by frost but will often recover if the frost was light[2]. Succeeds in full sun to partial shade[3]. Grows best in a moist, fertile soil[4]. Tolerant of strong winds[5]. The leaves are very sensitive to small changes in light. When it is re-located it reacts by dropping many of its leaves and replacing them with new leaves adapted to the new light intensity[6]. Widely grown as an ornamental, the tree is classified as invasive in some Pacific Islands[7]. A fast-growing species[8]. 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[9].

Propagation

Seed - Semi-ripe cuttings[2]. Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Ficus+benjamina>

Pollinators

Wasps

References

  1. [1]Poisonous Plants of North Carolina — http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/poison/poison.htm ↩︎An excellent concise but comprehensive guide to toxic plants that grow in N. Carolina. It lists even those plants that are of very low toxicity, including several well-known food plants such as carrots and potatoes.
  2. [2]Desert Tropicals — http://www.desert-tropicals.com/ ↩︎The main focus of the site is succulent plants, but it also contains information on a wide range of other species. Usually at least one good photograph, plus basic information about the plant and its cultivation.
  3. [3]KemperCentreForHomeGardeningPlantFinder — Missouri Botanical Garden · http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/ ↩︎Basic cultivation details, plant uses, habitat etc for several thousand species of plants, mainly from the temperate zone.
  4. [4]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.
  5. [5]Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants — http://www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr/cd-keys/rfk/index.html ↩︎An online resource giving botanical information, and a little bit about plant usage, for over 2,700 species of plants found in the Australian rainforest.
  6. [6]Flowers of India — http://www.flowersofindia.net/ ↩︎A wed site of native Indian plants, plus cultivated and naturalized species. It has good quality photos and terse details on more than 3,000 species and cultivars.
  7. [7]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.
  8. [8]Forest Restoration Planting in Northern Thailand — Pakkad G.; Elliott S.; Anusarnsunthorn V. Et al · Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Bangkok · 2002 · http://www.fao.org/ ↩︎A report on reforestation in northern Thailand by using specific pioneer species. It can be downloaded from the Internet.
  9. [9]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.
  10. [10]Flora of China — Missouri Botanical Garden Press; St. Louis. · 1994 · http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/ ↩︎An excellent, comprehensive resource in 25 volumes. In addition to the botanical information the flora also gives basic information on habitat and some uses. An on-line version is also available.
  11. [11]Plants of Southeast Asia — http://www.asianplant.net/ ↩︎Excellent site with brief information on the plant, its range, habitat and uses, plus phots of specimens, close-ops of flowers and leaves etc,
  12. [12]Minor Products of Philippine Forests — Brown. W. H. · Bureau of Forestry, Manilla. · 1920 ↩︎A useful guide to some of the plants of the area, though terse on details. The book is out of copyright and can be legally downloaded from the Internet.
  13. [13]Medicinal Plants of the Philippines — Bureau of Plant Industry, Philippines. · http://www.bpi.da.gov.ph/Publications/mp/mplants.html ↩︎An Internet site from the Philippines Department of Agriculture, giving information in a readable way on the medicinal uses of many plants in their area.
  14. [14]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.
  15. [15]Five hundred plant species in Gunung Halimun Salak National Park, West Java — Hari Priyadi et al · Center for International Forestry Research; Indonesia. · 2010 · http://www.cifor.cgiar.org · ISBN 978-602-8693-22-6 ↩︎Brief details of the uses of 500 Indonesian plants. It is available as a PDF document to download from the internet.