gameleira





	Strangler figs, called gameleira in Brazil, are one of the most important plant species of the rainforest ecosystem. There are close to 1,000 different species of ficus, which can be found in every major rainforest, tropical continent or island around the world. Hundreds of animals like pigeons, parrots, hornbills, toucans, monkeys, gibbons, and fruit-eating bats feed on the sweet fruit of the fig tree. Strangler figs are tall canopy trees which can grow to 148 feet in height. The manner in which they reach the canopy is a strange story. The forest floor of a rainforest is a difficult place for seedlings to grow. There is little light and a lot of competition for water and nutrients. Strangler figs have made an adaptation to avoid these difficulties. Unlike most plants, strangler figs start out their lives as epiphytes in the crook of a tree or on its branches. Tiny, sticky seeds are deposited high in a tree by animal droppings. The seeds are not affected by the animal's digestive tract and soon germinate.


		The strangler fig has an aggressive growth habit that insures its survival in the rainforest. The seedlings grows slowly at first, getting their nutrients from the sun, rain and leaf litter that has collected on the host. The stranglers send out many thin roots that snake down the trunk of the host tree or dangle as aerial roots from its branches. When the roots reach the ground they dig in and put on a growth spurt, competing with the host tree for water and nutrients. They also send out a network of roots that encircle the host tree and fuse together. As the roots grow thicker they squeeze the trunk of its host and cut off its flow of nutrients.In the canopy the strangler fig puts out lots of leaves that soon grow thicker than the host tree and rob it of sunlight. Eventually the host dies from strangulation, insufficient light and root competition, and the strangler fig stands on its own. A hollow center is all that remains of the host.


	Some figs grow root systems that develop into thin buttresses that can spread out to a distance of about 30 feet. Other figs grow aerial roots from their branches that, when they reach the ground, root themselves and become another trunk on the same tree. Strangler figs have light colored bark and umbrella shaped canopies. Green above and lighter below, the leaves are simple, ovoid and usually between 1.5 - 3 inches long. Waxy leaves protect the strangler fig from drying winds and the sunlight that it is exposed to high in the canopy. Perhaps the most amazing part of this extraordinary tree is its flower. What we think of as the fruit is really a hollow, flower-bearing structure called a cyconia. The inside it is lined with hundreds of male and female flowers. The males carry pollen and the females bear seeds. There are two different types of female flowers; one with a short style and one with a long style.


		Now, if that isn't weird enough, each species of fig has a symbiotic relationship with its own species of tiny pollinator wasps. These wasps are less than a millimeter in length, and enter the cyconia through an opening at the bottom of the fruit. Once inside, they pollinate the long-styled female flowers in the process of lying their eggs in the ovaries of short-style flowers. Without these special wasps carrying pollen from one cyconium to another there would be no seeds.


	When the eggs hatch, two kinds of wasps emerge; a female and male. When the male hatches it finds a short-style flower and bites a small hole in the ovary wall. It then inseminates the female through the hole and repeats the process with every female it finds. The female will then crawl out of the hole made by the male. As a last act in its short life the male will chew through the cyconium wall to the outside. The females are then able to leave and repeat the process of pollination and egg lying in other figs.

	The above text is part of an article by E. Benders Hyde that I found on the web: http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/strangler_figs.htm.
	All photos on this page are from the web .


	Gameleiras, or banyan trees, are considered holy in African and Afro-Brazilian cultures. The same applies to the two great Asian religions, Buddhism and Hinduism.

	Gautama Siddhartha was filled with many questions and wanted to know the truths of life. He set out on his own to "find himself". Seven years went by and he had not found what he was looking for and traveled to Bodhgaya, India. He sat under a pipal tree and decided not to get up until he attained enlightenment. No one knows the exact length of time he spent under the tree; different stories vary. Guatama became enlightened or reached nirvana and became the Buddha or Awakened One. The pipal tree became known as the Bodhi or "Enlightened" tree, and soon after, the Buddha's followers saw the tree as sacred.

	The bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa), also known as banyan, bo, or pipal tree, comes from the Asiatic fig. It starts it's life as an epiphyte and can grow to one-hundred feet. It's big roots sustain the long extended branches. The bodhi tree continually rejuvenates by rooting it's branches in the soil. To some, the bodhi trees are believed to be immortal. One sacred bodhi tree in Sri Lanka is thought to be 2200 years old. The continuous life of these trees is what might have gave them their sacred symbolism in the Buddhist religion. Like the bodhi tree, Buddhist religion teaches that when we die, we move on to a different life and possibly in a different form, but we are never really dead, we "rejuvenate".

	In Hinduism, the banyan/fig tree, called Ashwatta, is considered to be very sacred and worshipped as the abode of the trimurthis, as the following sloka states: Moolatho Brahma Roopaya, Madhyato Vishnu Roopini, Agratas Shiv Roopaya, Vriksha Rajayte Namaha. Brahma shaped at the root, Vishnu shaped in the middle and Shiva shaped at the top, we salute you, the king of all trees.

	Hinduism itself is likened to a giant banyan tree:
	We can define Hinduism as a set of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions that has been gradually evolving over a period of time in the Indian subcontinent with its primary roots in the Vedas but like a giant banyan tree with its secondary roots deriving succor from all directions and various sources, providing shelter to many divergent beliefs and practices and still spreading farther and farther from its base.



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