BAS Aw ‘ewes Spon weather Shop tanh Tre] Captal More +S Q earth Fig trees have not only witnessed history but have shaped it and they could even enrich our future Related Stories ‘By Mt Shanahan The world's new tallest tree? (over 2,000 years ago, an important tee had one of ts branches removed on the order af ndian emperor Ashoka the Great. twas Under tis wer tre thatthe Buddha Issa to have attained enlghtenment.Achoka bestowed kingship on the branch, and Planted itn thick immed soli gold vase, He then took the branch ver mountains and down the Ganges Ret to the Bay of Bengal There, his daughter carted it aboard ship and sailed fr Sr Lanka to present it othe king Ashoka love the plant Why some trees live underground somuch thathe she tears ashe watched it eave, 7 Tis story, fom the epic poem The Mohavams, is about kindof roe scientists cal Ficus rligiaso. True tots name, anunbrokenting of devotion towards it stretches back to thousands of years before Ashoka’ tine But Freligiosa isnot alone is just one of more than 750‘ig species. No other plants have held such sway over human imagination. Thy featur in every major religion and have influenced kings and queens, Scents and soldiers. They played roles in human evolution and the ‘dawn of cilisation. These trees have not only witnessed history they have shaped it. ifwe play it right, they could even enrich our Follow BBC Earth if v Coos rer cee © The plants that see, hear and smell future. Figs sustain many ara (ret Alessarro e/a) [Most flowering plants display their blooms fr alo see, but the Ficus specs hie them away inside their hollow igs. And while most plants bury their oots underground, the tranglr figs ane their in show them oft ” The stranglr figs are awesome plants that grow from seeds dropped high on They can even smother and other wees by passing birds and kill giant trees, growing mammals, By stating aut high nthe into colossal forms forest canopy instead of ents gloomy for, the stranger seedings got the light they need o grow with vigour As they do, they end down aerial roots that become thick and woody, encasing thelr hast ieesinaIving ‘mesh. They can even smother and kl lant tees, rowing nto Do you have many colossal forms. doppelgangers? Two countries have placed a stranger ion thelr coatsofarms, n Indonesia's case, the tree symbolises unity from diversity, its dangling roots representing the many islands that comprise the nation. Inthe ease of Barbados it was inspired by the vew that greeted the Portuguese explorer Pedro. Campos, when his ship reached the Island in 1536. He sow mary strane fies growing along the lands coast, a kind called Fus crf, Masses of ruddybrown foots hung from thir branches ke matted strands of hak. A Campos named the Why childbirth is painful and Island Los Batbados~"the bearded ones, dangerous Why some animals eat themselves: ‘Achota the Gre’ daughter Sangha scompaning the racred fi te to rank {cre Phono DhamayCe by 20) ‘More than 300 years later, the Bish biologist Alfred Russel Wallace was exploring islands onthe other side of the word. He sald the strana igs he saw during his eight-year odyssey across the Malay ‘chipelago wore “the most extraordinary trees in the forest”. How they overcame ther struggle fr exstonce inspired him ashe evoloped the thory of evolution by natural election, Independentiy of Chartes Darwin. ut the strange figs had reached into human minds ong before these European explores took to the seas. Toke Ashoka the Great's F reigns Buddhists, Hindus and Jains have revered this species for more than two millenia. The same ree featured in battle hymns sung by the Vedic people 3500 years ag. ‘An, 3,500 years earl, t appeared inthe myths and at ofthe Indus Vly Cllisaton. kouhere In Ala — indeed across the tropes an subtroples — cultures have adopted fg trees 2s symbols of power and places of prayer. These figs feature in reaton stores, flkioe and feraty rites. The champions the Indian banyan (Ficus Benaholens), tee so biaitcan resemble a smal forest fom af uddhists, Minus anon have eered rls or more than to milena Ce: Image eran ‘Banyans grow so large becaute the roots they drop from tit branches can merge int stout pitas as thick as English oak trees, These false trunks support the banyan's huge branches, enabling thom to grow longer and send down even more roots. (One banyan in Uttar Pradesh is said to be immartal. Another in Gujarat said ta have grown from a twig used asa toothbrush. A thirds boFeved to have sprung up where a woman threw herself ‘onto her husbana's burning funeral pyre and died. That ree, in ‘Andhra Pradesh, can shelter 20,000 people. The frst Europeans to enjoy a banyan’ shade were Alexander the Great and his solders, who atived in nda in 326 BCE. Thel tales of this tre soon reached the Greckphlosopher Theophrastus, the founder of modern botany He had been studying the eae, Ficus ceria, ” Theophrastus had noticed tiny insects entering or emerging from fis Their Each Ficus species has its story would tum out tobe one ofthe ‘own wasp pollinator ‘most astounding in al of biology. More than 2,000 years would pass before scientists realised that each Feus species has ts own wasp polinator, while some even have two. LUkewis, each Rgwasp species can only ay is eggs inthe flowers of Its partner fs. This relationship began more than 80 milion years ago and has shaped the wold ever since. Ficus species must produce Fes vear-round to ensure ther poinator wasps survive. Tiss reat news fr frut-eatng animals that would otherwise trugle to find food for much ofthe year Indeed, figs sustain moce species of wife than anyother kinds of rt. ‘he tanyan tee can get ry ig (Get: August MuenhVCCy 2.) ‘More than 1,200 species eat is, including one-tenth of althe world's birds, nearly al known fri-bats and dozens of species of Primates, dispersing thei seeds a5 they do so, Ecologist therefore cal ig “heystone resources”, ie the keystone of brie, figs ‘sappeared everything else could come crashing down. Figsdo not only nourish animals. The year-ound presence of ripe is \wouls have helped sustain our esely human ancestor High-energy igs may have helped our ancestors to develop bigger brains. There is also a theory that suggest our hands evolved as tools for assessing which igs ae sft, and therefore sweet ad rich in energy While the frst humans benefited fram fig biology, thee descendants mastered it Ficus species are among the fist plants people domesticated, several thousand years ag. ” ‘The ancient Egyptians salted upon a species cle Fus scomons, whose Farmers even trained polinator wasp was eter locally ‘monkeys to climb trees and tinct orhed never ative y rights harvest them this speces should not hae vieled 9 sine rie fig But through a stroke of luck or genius farmers worked out that they could trick the tee into pening its figs by eashing them with blade. Before long the figs were 8 ‘mainstay of Egyptian agriculture. Farmers even trained monkeys to limb tees and harvest them, ype trees fed both bellies and bails. The Pharaohs ook ied fest thei graves inorder to sustain their sous on thei journey into the afterlife. Tey belived the mother goddess Hathor would emerge rom a mythic fig tre to weleome them into heaven. Freliosa sone of mare than 750 fi species red: Dave Stamoul/Aay] Tothenorthand east, the Eayptian it's sweeter cousin, Fanco, became an important food to several other ancient elsations. The Sumerian King Urukagina wrote abut ther nearly 5,000 years ago. King Nebuchadnezzar had them planted in the hanging gardens of| Babylon. King Solomon of ae! praised them in song The ancient Greeks and Romans said figs were heaversent Their allo can perhaps be explaines by another crucial point. Aside from boing swoct and tasty, they ae als packed with fibre, vitamins and miners These nutritional bonfits have long boon known "Figs are restorative" wrote 1s-century Reman philosopher Py the Elder, nd the best food that canbe taken by those who ae brought ow bylong sickness" ‘lng bridge formed rom he otsof wo Fs elastics eee (cre ‘aternalecby 20) famous example ofthe healing power of fis appears inthe Bible. Hezokiah, King of Judah, was sick even to death” witha plague of boils but recovered after is sonants applied a pate of crushed is tos akin, ” The healing power of fg species snot Uted to thelr fru, Medicines These chimps may have developed over millenia by people been self-medicating ‘throughout the troples make use of thelr bark, leaves, oots and late. The use of tg trees a ving medicine cabinets may even predate the cotgn of our species. Qu closest ing relatives, chimpanzees, aso appear to tur to these tees fr ther curative powers, suggest ‘our common ancestor with them dié too Researchers working in Uganda occasionally observed chimps eating ‘unusual food, such as the bark and leaves of wld fig tees. These chimps may have been seltmedicating, the researchers coneaded,