Plants

Weirdest Plants
Amazing Plant
Feeding Off Roots
Sunlight Not Necessary
Camel's Foot Climber
Living Houses
How Trees Cope with the Cold
Beautiful And Useful
Seed Power
Dreaded Flowers
A Strange Friendship
Lotus Lore
A Valley of flowers
The Delectable Durian
Red for Safety
Touch Me Not
Eco-Friendly Oil
Crazy Plant
The Civet fruit tree
The Toughest EucalyptusTree
Mutual Benefits
The Plant Clock
Desert Curiosity
In Search of Water
Keep Off!
Kicking Trees!
Velcro Plants!
The Quiver Tree
Helicopter-like Seeds
The New Beginning
Growing From A Bud
The Stranglers
Two-In-One
The Garden of Algae
Ivory Substitutes
Crying Trees
The Largest Seed
Most Expensive Spice
Passion Flowers
Daffodils Dance the Twist!
Dancing Leaves
The Tallest Flowering Tree
The Super Fruit
The White Dhup
Lighthouse of the Pampas
Exploding Leaves
The Titan Arum
Plant Guide
War Paint
The Dragon's Mouth

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The Stranglers

A few varieties of semi-parasitic fig trees create space for themselves in crowded rainforests by strangling their host trees to death.
Once the seedlings of a strangler fig tree take root in the debris or leafy mould found in the crevices of a tree, they send out roots that entwine the tree. The roots get their nourishment from the trunk and branches of the tree.
When the plant grows, it sends out additional roots to the ground in order to begin a new independent life of its own. These roots take up all the water and nutrients from the soil, depriving the host tree of nourishment. As the strangler fig gains energy and strength and matures into a full-fledged tree, its large leafy crown competes with its host for sunlight.

It is then that its woody trunk-like roots tighten their grip around the host which by now is undernourished and on the verge of decay, and slowly smother it to death. It takes around a hundred years for the strangler fig tree to kill its host tree.

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Last updated on :9/13/2005