Get your own Free Home Page``About 50% of the fig-species are (potentially) hemi-epiphytic and about 50% have a terrestrial life-form. In Africa, hemi-epiphytism is restricted to the subgenus Urostigma, where it is exhibited in most species. Hemi-epiphytes start their life as epiphytes at some site suitable for settlement on a host tree, such as crevices in the bark, a rotten stump of a broken branch, or in forks of branches (see Michaloud & Michaloud-Pelletier, 1987). Saplings of hemi-epiphytic species have a swollen base of the stem and main root (`lignotuber'), which may be of importance for anchoring the plant. It usually sends down a (`tap')root along the trunk of the host. Until this reaches the soil, giving the plant access to more nutrients, allowing a more rapid growth, the hemi-epiphyte grows slowly and normally does not reproduce. The root-system expands and by anastomosing may form a root-basket around the trunk of the host, and a dense root-mat underneath the host-tree. By reducing the nutrient supply, shading its crown and probably also by cutting off the sap-streams, a hemi-epiphytic fig may overpower the host-tree, `strangling' it by the root-basket around the trunk.''
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