A fig tree of riverbanks and swamps, with a spreading crown and hairy leaf undersides, bearing figs relished by birds and other wildlife.
Ficus trichopoda (family Moraceae), the swamp fig, is an evergreen tree, usually 5 to 10 metres tall and exceptionally 25 metres, with a wide canopy of very stout branches that spread almost horizontally. Older trees send down many aerial roots that reach the ground and become pillar roots, so that the tree comes to look like a banyan. It is gathered from the wild for fibre and is sometimes grown as an ornamental; in South Africa it is protected by law. Its roots are aggressive and can damage buildings and drains.
It grows from Senegal to Sudan and south to northern Angola, Zambia, Mozambique, Eswatini, northern South Africa and Madagascar, in swamp forest, on riverbanks, in seasonally waterlogged valley grassland (dambos) and in moist valleys, and it is locally abundant, sometimes in groups, in the fringing forests of the savanna, from sea level to 1,200 metres. Like all figs, it is pollinated by its own species of tiny fig wasp, which breeds inside the figs. It can be grown from fresh seed, by air layering or from cuttings; even large stems will root.
Source: Useful Tropical Plants database (Fern, K.).
Grows naturally along riverbanks, swamps, and floodplains; its milky latex has been used as birdlime and its bark plaited into rope.