Plant of the Week 01/21/2008: Weeping fig (Ficus benjamina)

Plant of the Week 01/21/2008

Ficus benjamina Linnaeus

Photographed by: Chelsie Vandaveer
Credits: Weeping fig a longtime inhabitant of Chelsie's patio.
Other Information: Olympus C-8080wz

Known as banyans, rubber plants or figs, the genus Ficus contains about 800 species of trees, shrubs and vines. Figs comprise the majority the Moraceae, the mulberry family; the other 39 genera have only about 600 species between them. Most figs are evergreen and native to warm temperate and tropical moist forests of Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and southern Pacific Islands. Figs are known for their mutualistic relationship with tiny wasps in the family Agaonidae; each species of fig is inextricably dependent upon one of the species of wasp and vice versa.

Since the 1950s, the weeping fig (Ficus benjamina Linnaeus) has become a popular indoor plant, so popular that most people seldom notice them in the atria of office buildings or the concourses of malls. The weeping fig is highly variable and flexible—it has given rise to a number of cultivars (curly, variegated, deep green and pale leaved varieties) and can be trained as a standard, a multi-trunk, a braid or a bonsai.

But our ubiquitous indoor tree came from the tropical mixed forests of southern China, Southeast Asia, Oceania and northern Australia. It is a keystone species in the forest; flowering and fruiting several times a year, it provides small figs for numerous birds and mammals. Tan Marduka (2001) studied a single tree in the Niah National Park in Malaysia for 24 hours and found 8 mammals, 9 identified birds and a host of small unidentified birds feeding on the small fruits.

And birds are necessary to spread the weeping fig. The seeds, left in a bird dropping, germinate on a branch. The weeping fig begins life as an epiphyte. The roots grow down and around the supporting tree until they reach the soil. The supporting tree will die either shaded out or unable to compete with the constricting roots of the fig. Our fig is a strangler. And, perhaps, that will give you pause next time you see a weeping fig just sitting in an office….

(Compiled from: Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, NY, 1976; A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, C Brickell and J.D. Zuk, eds., American Horticultural Society, DK Publishing, NY, 1997; and “Observations of Birds and Mammals Visiting a Fruiting Fig at Niah National Park”, Tan Marduka, Hornbill, Vol. 5, 2001, published to the internet by Mike’s Website)