Figs and fig wasps

The current project builds on previous grants under the Darwin Initiative that focused on Nepal's flora, a key one of which dealt with plant information and technology transfer, run by the Natural History Museum in London. But the current project is much more ambitious. Although only funded for three years at present, the team hopes funds will be made available for the estimated 15 years it will take to complete the new project. The Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh already have a few of Nepal's most illusive plants. Collected over 100 years ago by Victorian explorers, the plants have been nurtured by generations of botanists. Back in their native homeland, some have not fared quite so well and are on the verge of extinction. The botanists hope to reintroduce Victorian and modern seedlings to Nepal from the Edinburgh gardens. In spite of the hi-tech approach, the team will set about collecting the thousands of different plants in the same way the Victorians did — by going out and searching for them. Part of the training has involved three expeditions, with the most recent in September, going to the Sagarmatha national park in the Mount Everest region. On these expeditions, each botanist specialises in a particular plant group and gathers specimens. But already the team are making worrying discoveries. In the picture above, a stand of gentians can be seen in the foreground but to the right, a recent deposit of morraines is visible. Knott believes these deposits are the result of a recent glacial lake outburst flood, which may have occurred because of temperature changes as a result global warming. " It looks like quite a devastating flood, " he says. With growing human pressures on native plant species too, the challenge to document Nepal's present flora is on. What are figs and fig wasps? Figs are plants in the genus Ficus, which have a unique closed inflorescence called a syconium, typically containing hundreds of flowers. We eat the ripe syconia of one species, F. carica, and call these 'pseudofruits' figs too. There are about 750 fig species worldwide, mostly in the tropics, where dramatic 'strangler' figs are found. These start life as epiphytes on other trees and then drop aerial roots that slowly smother and kill their host. Figs have an obligate mutualism with tiny fig-pollinating wasps (family Agaonidae). Female wasps enter receptive syconia, where they pollinate female flowers. …