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Beware the fig!
Most figs are sweet, but the strangler fig, Ficus aurea, is no sweetheart. It's a predator that kills palm trees. Strangler fig seeds that pass through the digestive systems of birds, fruit-eating bats, or squirrels & are lucky enough to fall into a juicy pocket in the trunk of a palm tree sprout & send out roots that encircle the palm's trunk, "strangling" it. It's the growing fig's leaves that actually kill off the palm tree by completely blocking life-giving sunlight from the palm.
Books
- Leaves in Myth, Magic, & Medicine
Information about 110 American plants: botany, horticulture, medicine, history, literature, food, folklore, handicrafts.
Last updated by curious on Aug. 23, 2008
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