Ficus altissima Seeds | Council Tree

Council Tree (Ficus altissima) with large glossy oval leaves and a buttressed trunk on a tropical giant — Council Tree (*Ficus altissima*): Moraceae, the buttressed fig of Asian avenues and, lately, Florida gardens.

LATIN NAME: Ficus altissima

COMMON NAME: Council Tree

Plant Profile

The Council Tree is a giant evergreen fig of the mulberry family from the forests of South and Southeast Asia, growing twenty-five to thirty metres with a broad crown and the buttressed, wide-spreading trunk that old figs develop. The leaves are its horticultural signature: large, thick, glossy, oval and prominently veined, on young plants often marked with yellow-green veining that makes the nursery form ‘Yellow Gem’ a houseplant staple. The small figs are carried in pairs along the branches, orange when ripe, and they feed a procession of birds and fruit bats.

In its home forests it begins life high in another tree’s crown, drops aerial roots and eventually surrounds its host, a strangler’s career that avenue planting and gardens usually short-circuit. It is a tree of temple grounds, city parks and broad streets across the tropical East.

Science & Biotechnology

Its fig biology is the family’s standard marvel: each fig species depends on its own species of tiny fig wasp to pollinate the hidden flowers inside the synconium, and the mutualism has made figs a flagship system in coevolution research, with F. altissima among the studied species. The buttressed trunk and the strangling habit have drawn forest-ecology work on how such trees reshape the canopy around them. Its spread record is more recent and less welcome: it has escaped from ornamental plantings in southern Florida, naturalising in hammocks and remnant forest, and is now treated as an invasive there, with seed spread by birds from planted street and garden trees.

For growers in warm climates, that record is the caution: a magnificent avenue tree at home is a seed-spreading escapee where its wasp pollinator has also arrived.

Uses & Benefits

In its home range it is a first-rank shade and avenue tree: deep, glossy, cooling shade over wide streets and temple courts, and a bird tree whose figs feed the city’s fruit pigeons and barbets through the season. In gardens within its climate it is a grand specimen for space, and its banyan-style aerial roots add character with age.

In cooler climates it is a bold foliage houseplant, the ‘Yellow Gem’ form in particular, tolerating the bright, dry room better than most large-leafed figs. Wherever it is grown outdoors in warm, humid regions, the fruit and the birds that carry it should be part of the decision, not an afterthought.

Growing from Seed

Sow the fresh figs, whole or crushed, on the surface of a moist, humus-rich compost and keep it at 24 to 28 °C in bright, humid shade; germination follows within a few weeks if the seed is fresh. Pot the seedlings on as they fill the container, and grow them in bright filtered light with steady water.

Plant out into deep, moist, well-drained soil in full sun or light shade in a frost-free climate, spacing it for a thirty-metre future, and water through the first two dry seasons. Indoors, give it the brightest window, let the compost dry slightly at the surface between waterings, and expect a bold, fast foliage plant that will eventually want the floor.

Our Take

A buttressed avenue giant with houseplant-grade foliage and a strangler’s ancestry. Magnificent in its home range, a documented escapee in Florida, and a superb pot plant everywhere in between.

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