1-3 The Strangler Fig

But some of these squatters can become murderers.

A young fig tree like this may arrive here as a seed carried by a bird. At first it grows quite slowly. slowly. As it gains in strength, its roots crawl downwards over its landlord's branches. Some dangle free, but keep on growing. Eventually, they reach the ground. Now, supplied with nutrients from the soil, the fig grows really fast.

The rootlets wrapped around the main trunk thicken and fuse into a lattice. The host tree's fate is now sealed, for it is in the clutches of a strangler fig.

As years pass, the fig thickens its roots, embracing the trunk ever more completely. Trees grow by increasing their girth, for the host tree that is now impossible. But growth is difficult anyway, because the fig has a huge crown in the canopy that cuts soft sunshine from its host and its roots in the ground are stealing most of the soil's nutrients.

Eventually, the host tree is killed and its trunk rots away, but the fig does not fall. Its roots now form a hollow cylinder that is quite capable of standing upright by itself. This strangler is about 300 years old. In fact, it may be misleading to refer to it as a single tree. It's probable that 300 years ago there were several young figs up in the canopy.

Now, centuries later, their roots have grown down to the ground. They've got rid of the body of their victim, and they're clinging to one another in this extraordinary interlace of pillars and buttresses in order to maintain their dominance of this part of the forest.

Nor are these monsters always satisfied with just one victim. This 500 year old having strangled its first victim and lost its support, toppled sideways into a second, killed that and then a third and now its roots are ready to embrace a fourth. tree trunks are not wasted.