Ficus and the "law of the jungle"

19 February 2009

Ficus, which grows as a houseplant in the US, becomes a tree here. It starts as a vine climbing a host tree. When the ficus succeeds, it surrounds the tree with a network of vines, eventually choking the life from its host. The original tree decays, and the ficus “tree” — really a network of vines whose stems have become trunklike — continues its life with a hollow core. Eventually, because it doesn't have a great root network, it blows over in the forest. We saw one huge specimen this last weekend that had blown over and rerooted on two separate occasions, so one could see at the base of a living ficus two large horizontal trunk sections -- the photo at the top of the post is from one of these sections.

I like photographing isolated trees — they are powerful symbols and it is easy to capture something of their essence. Trees in a forest are an entirely different matter. Here are some efforts, not really pleasing to me but worthy of the attempt.