Ficus religiosa L.-the tree-splitter

Abstract

In ground trees, which are devoid of adventive aerial roots, supplementary conductive elements develop in trunk corrugations, forming distinct units with the large side branches above and their roots below. Unlike most epiphytic jungle figs, which ring the stems of dicotyledonous support trees from the outside, the epiphytic bushes of F. religiosa are not true stranglers. Their roots penetrate inside the stem of the support, eventually splitting it from within. The various factors indispensable for the penetration of the roots are discussed. In Nepal and Thailand, because the survival of F. religiosa trees for hundreds of years, there is an accumulation of very old trees, whose supports have by now disappeared or still persist in the form of broken and dead blocks of wood between the stout fig roots. The characteristics of the tree at the various stages of its development support the hypothesis that F. religiosa must have originated under the specific climatic conditions prevailing in he monsoon tropophilous forests (ix. seasonal forests, hygrophilous in summer and xerophilous in winter) at the foot of the Himalayas.