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My ficus has balls!!
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Posted by
instar8 Z 5 N.IN (
My Page) on
Thu, Dec 21, 06 at 16:47
| I wish i had a good enough lens on my camera, but alas, my ficus' balls are less than a cm in diameter, i can't get a clear pic. Can anyone tell me what they are?
They're perfectly round, lime green with little studlike bumps, and arise from itty-bitty stems just below the terminal buds. Is my bonsai gonna bloom??? Surely galls or diseased tissue wouldn't have well-defined stems?
This tree is probably close to ten years old, a foot tall with 7" diam trunk and should definitely have been repotted this year, it's sending out aerial roots.My bad... |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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- Posted by rjj1 Norman OK Zone7 (My Page) on
Thu, Dec 21, 06 at 17:02
| 10 years old, 1 foot tall, 7" diameter trunk? The trunk is almost as wide as it is tall? 7" from one side of trunk to the other? Ficus, figs do fruit. randy |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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| OK, so I'm spatially challenged as well as overly excited about my tree having three balls... Trunk CIRCUMFERENCE 7 inches... |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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| It sounds to me like your Ficus, which is also a fig, has little figs growing on it. |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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| Cool! I wonder when it flowered? It sits right over my kitchen sink, so I can keep a close eye on it, the flowers must have been pretty insignificant. In all the gorgeous pictures of fig bonsais i've never seen one with fruit or flowers, i wonder too if i really overstressed it to make it want to reproduce in the dead of winter... Thanks
lynnie b |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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| At last, someone who knows about the ficus balls! I desperately need to know if those balls are poisonous. I have a puppy and she eats several day. My neighbors tree, puts out probably 100 balls a day and I can't keep them all swept up. I know they're not real poisonous because she has been eating several a day for 4 months now. I just wonder because maybe a mild poison could do damage over time. I don't think they have caused any problems yet, but of course she is a puppy and has her digestion problems. Hope someone knows. |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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| She'll be fine, but do try to limit her intake anyway as it's a lot of sugar she doesn't need. |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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- Posted by pipo Portugal (My Page) on
Wed, Jan 17, 07 at 21:18
Is that a Ficus retusa? carica? or what?
You didn't notice flowers because the "fruit" is the flower, that's something typical of Ficus. Ficus carica figs are edible and commonly consumed especially on latin countries (i love them). They're not poisonous and I don't think that the rarer retusa's figs are. It won't harm your pet, apart from inadequately high caloric intake (as lucy said) and possibly loose feces as it is a natural laxative. |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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Most figs are edible but some are so bitter they are worse than biting into an unripe lemon. I tried a Ficus Benjamina fruit and nearly sucked my cheeks down my throat - never again. You'll never see the flowers on any fig - they are pretty unique in the plant world in that the flowers are INSIDE the fruit - the 'little round balls'. Every type of fig has it's own individual type of wasp that goes into the fruit. It walks round inside thereby pollinating the fruit and the fruit has nectar in the flowers that the wasp eats. The wasp doesn't harm the tree in any way, it is a perfect symbiotic relationship. Without the wasp the fruit is unlikely to produce viable seeds - but they are still completely edible. Some figs have their fruit at the base of the leaves, some grow in clusters on the trunk. As to the dog eating the figs - no problems there except it may get the 'runs' for a few days so might be a bit messy. As the previous poster wrote: Ficus Caricara is the edible fig known worldwide - go into your supermarket and look for dried figs - they are ficus caricara - and me too, love them, fresh or dried!
Taffy |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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| The ficuses with those little berry things, sold as 'bonsai', are usually some type of microcarpa... |
RE: My ficus has balls!!
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| The balls were actually Ficus Benjamina. That's funny Taffyman about tasting the figs. My dog is a puppy and as for taste, I don't think it really matters to her. This is my first time here and you guys really know the answers! Thank you so much. |
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