Aoa by junge1

Photography • Flowers/Plants • posted on Jan 30, 2018

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Description

Aoa is the Samoan name for the Polynesian Banyan or Strangler Fig. There are two types of Aoa, the Ficus Obliqua and the Ficus Prolixa. Shown is the Ficus Prolixa which may reach heights of up to 200-ft. The trees provide food for indigenous birds and bats. The trees are native to eastern Australia, New Guinea, eastern Indonesia to Sulawesi and islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean., Beginning its life as a seedling, which grows on other plants (epiphyte). The seedling first anchors itself by sending roots into the little pocket of decaying leaves or moss where it has sprouted, then it wraps more and more roots around the tree that supports it, called the 'host' tree. Soon the banyan's roots are spreading down the trunk, and finally they reach all the way to the ground. By then the fate of the host tree is sealed. It is literally buried beneath the growing banyan - strangled to death. Eventually the body of the host tree decays away, leaving no trace behind, except sometimes a long hollow trunk extending up inside the middle of the full-grown banyan. Because banyans will start life on almost any type of host tree, they kill very few of any particular kind, and so are no threat to other plant species. This picture was taken on 31 December 2017, Sig...