Exploring Pigeon Valley: The Common Wild Fig

This is the 108th article in an ongoing series that highlights the riches of Pigeon Valley, the urban nature reserve in the heart of Glenwood. The focus of this article is on the Common Wild Fig, or Natal Fig.

Ficus natalensis is a tree that tends to get a bad press. Who would want to be known as a Strangler? This is because of the species’ habit of growing (as an epiphyte, a plant that uses another as its support) onto other trees and finally taking over completely. Many street trees, such as the Flamboyant, end up having a seedling growing in a bit of accumulated leaves, and sending roots down the trunk to the ground. It also infuriates house-owners because of its ability to lodge itself in a tiny crevice and then to grow from there.

ALSO READ: Exploring Pigeon Valley: The Forest Cabbage Tree

In its defence, I would point out that its immense resilience is a great asset. Some of the Flamboyants were destined to die, in any case, and then there is already a tree to take over. We may increasingly need trees to envelop and eventually replace masonry, in a triumph of nature over lifeless matter. The tree also provides comfort in the deep shade it provides. And, as for the strangling habit, sometimes it takes many decades to take over the tree it grows on. In fact, it is itself vulnerable to being used by the alien and invasive Schefflera actinophylla), which readily grows on the tree.

I find it hard to distinguish between this and Ficus burkei, which looks very similar. The easiest distinction in my mind is that burkei just looks less thickly leaved and has less dense shade. Like figs generally, pollination takes place through wasps, and there is great complexity in which wasp species pollinate which fig species.

I love this tree, not least because of its impressive architecture and for the role it plays in the lives of birds, in particular.

Crispin Hemson chairs the Friends of Pigeon Valley, a group that undertakes clearing of alien plants, keeps records of bird and mammal sightings and alerts management to any problems.

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