Fantastic Figs

Have you noticed that the birds are gorging on figs at the moment?

A female Australasian Figbird eating a fig 

in a Ficus watkinsiana

Figs are fascinating plants as they have some very unusual characteristics.
  

Strangler figs grow in and around other trees. This is known as being hemi-epiphytic. An epiphyte such as an orchid growing on trees in the wild is a plant which grows on another but is not parasitic. A hemiepiphyte starts by growing on the plant until its aerial roots reach the ground and then becomes independent. In the Strangler Fig's case, it surrounds the host tree which eventually dies. 

Non-strangler figs grow in the ground or over rocks. Early settlers often planted them for shade and as you travel around the Scenic Rim you'll see them in the gardens of old homesteads. 

Unripe, green figs
of the Ficus watkinsiana

Most figs have both male and female flowers on the same plant. This is known as being monoecious from Greek meaning 'one house'. However you won't see them because they are actually inside the fruit! This seems very strange, but in true botanical terms the fig isn't really a fruit, it is a cluster of hundreds of flowers enclosed in a smooth skin.
      
Being flowers they have to be pollinated in a very special way. So, along comes the tiny fig wasp. The female wasp, carrying pollen, squeezes through a minute opening in the fig. She lays her eggs on one type of flower, pollinating the other at the same time. The young wasp larvae develop, and the adult wasps mate, inside the fig. The males are wingless and die while the females exit from the opening gathering pollen on the way. Each fig species has to be fertilised this way with its own species of wasp. The fig depends on the wasp and the wasp depends on the fig. 

Cleaning her beak after her meal

Birds love the figs. In the dense forest the patter of half-eaten fruit falling on the leaf-litter alerts you to the birds in the fig trees. Figbirds, Bowerbirds, Pigeons, Catbirds, Koels, and Crows are just some of the birds which love figs. 

Aborigines used the fruit, the bark and the latex for food, medicines and tools.

If you want to know more about native figs try these links: Native Figs: Food for Wildlife, Noosa's Native Plants, Figs suitable for your garden, How figs are pollinated.