Balete tree

Several species of Filipino Ficus trees

The balete tree are several species of trees in the Philippines from the genus Ficus, which are broadly referred to as balete in the local language. A number of these are strangler figs, as they germinate upon other trees, before entrapping their host tree entirely and eventually killing it. Consequently the young plants are hemiepiphytes, i.e. epiphytes or air plants that grow several hanging roots which eventually touch the ground and take root. Some baletes produce natural rubber of an inferior quality. The Indian rubber tree, F. elastica, was formerly cultivated to some extent for rubber. Some of the species like tangisang-bayawak or Ficus variegata are large and could probably be utilized for match wood. The wood of Ficus species are soft, light, and of inferior quality, and the trees usually have ill-formed, short boles.

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