Strangler fig trees are common in the Yucatan and easily identified. The bark is gray and smooth, and the “roots” seem to melt into one another and flow around rocks.
Strangler figs begin their lives on the branches of other trees. Strangler fig fruits are gummy and full of tiny seeds, which are eaten by birds . When birds clean their bills on a tree branch, strangler fig seeds get planted and eventually germinate there. The resulting sprout is a tree-living epiphyte. Since stranger figs do not steal nutrients from their host trees but rather photosynthesize their own food with their own green leaves they are not parasites. Eventually , however, the strangler fig grows over the host tree and its cylindrical network of stems begins encases the host tree’s trunk. The host tree suffers because it loses sunlight, nutrients and water to the strangler. Finally the host tree dies and the strangler is left looking as if it were a normal tree with a typical trunk.
