FALL? The Interesting Strangler Fig

Recently all the leaves were falling off the Strangler Fig Tree – still green!

This is the Strangler Fig Tree before.

Now it is almost bare, but . . .

Immediately new buds started popping out and then . . .

Buds turning to new leaves which will again soon hide its host tree in there. The host tree is nearly dead with one limb showing leaves.

Read more about Strangler Fig Trees (a bunch of different species) on Wikipedia. Note that it is not a fig tree for the fruit we eat, but a type of  Ficus aurea of which this one does have a type of fruit that animals and birds eat, but not humans. Birds drop or deposit seeds in a living tree. The seeds first germinate in the tree like an epiphyte until the roots grow down to the grown. Then a real tree starts growing around the host tree until it eventually chokes it to death. My host tree still has one living limb with green leaves. After the host tree dies, then in years rots away, some of the strangler figs collapse for lack of support. They also share an interesting mutualism with the fig wasp, another story!   🙂