Cluster Fig

Medicinal Uses

Edible Uses

Edible Parts: Fruit  Leaves  Root  Shoots | Edible Uses: DrinkFruit - raw or cooked[2 , 272 ]. Sweet, but rather insipid[303 ]. They are used in various preserves and side-dishes[303 ]. Unripe fruits are pickled and used in soups[301 ]. The fruit can be dried and ground into a flour then eaten with sugar and milk[2 , 301 ]. The powder from roasted fruits forms a valuable breakfast food[301 ]. In times of scarcity, the unripe fruit is pounded, mixed with flour and made into cakes[2 ]. The fruit is up to 25mm in diameter[266 ]. The leaves are eaten as vegetable[303 ]. Young shoots are eaten raw or cooked[301 ]. The roots can be cut to provide a liquid that can be drunk as water[2 ].

Cultivation

Agroforestry Services: Crop shade  Fodder: Insect  Industrial Crop: Hydrocarbon  Management: Standard  Regional CropFicus species are common and form an important element of lowland rain forest, both as canopy and understorey trees. Most species prefer per-humid forest, but several are found in areas with a monsoon climate and in teak forest, including locations where the soil dries out[303 ]. Succeeds in full sun to partial shade[710 ]. Succeeds in most soils that are reasonably moist but well-drained[710 ]. Cluster fig is resistant to fire[303 ]. 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[413 ].

Known Hazards

The sap is poisonous and should not be ingested, it can also cause skin irritations so wear gloves when pruning and if you get sap on your skin rinse off immediately with water.

Habitats

In open, deciduous forest, common along river banks in lowlands[303 ]. Moist areas, beside rivers and streams, occasionally in streams at elevations of 100 - 1,700 metres in southern China[266 ].