In other words, you can’t harvest the immature fruit from an existing tree and use it to procure seeds for planting. Though the trees may form the little pods that precede the formation of seeds, weeping figs that are grown indoors will not produce viable seeds since they won’t have access to the species of wasps that pollinate them in the wild when they are growing inside your home. This tree is a reliable reproducer, so you can’t go wrong with any of these methods, though seeds have an extremely low germination rate. You can purchase seeds or a sapling, take cuttings, or even use air layering. There are multiple ways to propagate this tree. These types of ficus trees are commonly known as banyans. The ficus will often spread to surrounding trees until it becomes one massively spreading tree with multiple trunks attached to a single canopy. The original host tree is often strangled to death, and as it dies back, the new ficus “trunks” take over. These roots grow larger and larger, and eventually act like trunks for the plant. As it matures, it sends down long aerial roots that wrap around the host tree and eventually reach down to the soil. benjamina starts its life in the wild in the branches of another tree. It may, however, form bright red fruits containing sterile seeds. If you keep your weeping fig outdoors outside of its native range, don’t expect it to produce viable seeds. These wasps don’t exist outside of the same warm, tropical areas where the plant grows native, with just a few exceptions. benjamina has evolved alongside parasitic wasps that do all of the pollinating. Ficus is simply Latin for fig, and you may see this species referred to by the common name benjamin fig as well. You can easily see where the common name weeping fig comes from since the tree has a gracefully weeping appearance. Its scientific name doesn’t originate from someone named Benjamin but is probably a reference to benzoin, a resin that the tree produces. It has been introduced in warm, tropical areas like Hawaii and has become invasive in certain areas including Cuba, parts of Asia, and the Pacific Islands of Samoa and Tonga. It’s native to Australia, India, China, southeast Asia, and parts of the southwestern Pacific such as French Polynesia and Vanuatu.
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