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Ficus (/ ˈ f aɪ k ə s / [2] or / ˈ f iː k ə s / [3] [4]) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae.Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone.
The figs are edible and utilized in fresh or dried form by native people in many regions. They are also suited to preparation of fig preserve, [7] if other suitable fruit are added. [4] The heavily clustered figs suggest fecundity, and some trees in East Africa have been venerated as sacred shrines in animist practices. [4]
Theophrastus observed that just as date palms have male and female flowers, and that farmers (from the East) help by scattering "dust" from the male onto the female, and as a male fish releases his milt over the female's eggs, so Greek farmers tie wild figs to cultivated trees. They do not say directly that figs reproduce sexually, however. [19]
Trees are significant in many of the world's mythologies, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees , and the annual death and revival of their foliage, [ 1 ] [ 2 ] have often seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth.
The males also chew holes through the walls of the fig and open up the ostiole (a small opening at the apex of the fig), allowing the females to escape. Meanwhile, the male flowers within the fig finally shed their pollen, which adhere to the females in specialised pockets or simply onto their body surface. The females search for a new fig in ...
Ficus benjamina, commonly known as weeping fig, benjamin fig [3] or ficus tree, and often sold in stores as just ficus, is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae, native to Asia and Australia. [4] It is the official tree of Bangkok. The species is also naturalized in the West Indies and in the states of Florida and Arizona in the ...
Experiments carried out on fruiting Ficus auriculata trees at the Calcutta Botanic Gardens by the then Superintendent George King and his Botanic Garden colleagues described in King in 1897 which was the first detailed explanation of how the dioecious figs were pollinated by fig wasps which bred in the figs of male trees and then flew to female ...
The plant is used in traditional medicine in eastern Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo, where its leaves, fruits, stems and roots are believed to have healing properties. Among the traditional uses attributed to this plant include menstrual cycle regulation; the treatment of post-partum depression, lung diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, and ...