MATAPALO: THE STRANGLER FIG

Perhaps the best known tree in this area is the towering strangler fig tree, so well known that the area close to the beach here and actually the entire ridge Lapa Rios is situated on is named after this tree, but in Spanish: Matapalo. This impressive tree, a type of epiphyte, starts life as a tiny seed high up in the canopy on another kind of tree. The roots grow down to the forest floor where they dig in and begin to take nutrients from the soil. Gradually the roots wrap around the host tree, widen, and slowly form a lattice-work that surrounds the host's trunk. The fig's crown grows foliage which soon overshadows the tree. Eventually, the host tree dies, leaving the fig with a hollow trunk, which is easily climbed thanks to the many openings in the trunk. Figs are often the only tree species remaining after forest clearing since their knotted and twisted wood is shunned by loggers.
Ironically, this agent of death provides an important niche and food source to many rainforest creatures. Its hollow trunk, with an abundance of nooks and crannies, provides an important home to thousands of invertebrates, rodents, bats, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. Many other species are attracted to the fig tree because of its production of large amounts of good-tasting fig fruits. These fruits are packed with seeds, many of which are not destroyed when they are consumed, and are passed out in the dung of animals far from the mother tree. In many forests the fig tree is considered a keystone species since during parts of the year it is virtually the only tree producing fruit. During these lean times, many primates and birds feed almost exclusively on fig fruit.

Photos by Frances Figart