Ficus rubiginosa

Cultivation Details

The tree occurs in climates ranging from tropical to warm temperate, and from the well watered coast inland to areas bordering on semi-arid. Established plants can withstand short periods where the temperature drops to around -1°c^[1]. Easily grown in full sun or partial shade^[1]. Tolerant of extremes of soil fertility, it thrives on a variety of well-drained soils^[1]. It remains small in poor growing conditions, but if its roots reach better soils then it transforms into a large, free standing tree, thriving on high fertility soils^[1]. Once it is established, it can withstand periods of drought^[1]. The tree has been successfully grown in urban areas where air pollution, poor drainage, compacted soil, and/or drought are common^{[2, 1]}. The tree is often grown as an ornamental. It requires a specific species of minute wasp to effect pollination of the flowers and cannot produce seed in the absence of the wasp. If by any chance the wasp shoupd be introduced to areas where the tree is grown as an ornamental (as has happened in Hawaii and New Zealand), then the tree often excapes from cultivation into the wild and can harm native environments^[3]. Rather slow-growing^[1]. 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^[1].