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Ficus villosa is one of the most common root climbing figs in Borneo. Normally the fig fruit are difficult to photograph because these figs only  fruit when they reach the sunlit layer in the forest canopy. However this individual originally from Sabah is growing in the sunlit hothouse of the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens in London, UK.
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Ficus villosa from Sabah, growing in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens in London.
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Ficus villosa at Kew. This lone individual liana at Kew  appears to be a  female fig and it fruits almost continuously. Male Ficus villosa fig fruit are a different shape with a peaked ostiole.
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Ficus villosa at Kew. Many liana figs in Borneo (in SECTIONS RHIZOCLADUS and KISSOCYCEAE)  produce two types of shoots and leaves. These are the ACROPHYLL shoots which are produced when the liana has reached the sunlit canopy and starts fruiting.
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Ficus villosa at Kew. These are the BATHYPHYLL shoots and leaves which are using their roots to climb a concrete pillar at Kew. Because  botanists normally walk the forest at ground level, 99%  of the the liana figs   they encounter in Borneo’s forests are in the non fruiting bathyphyll growth phase, with the bathyphyll shoots and leaves  growing tightly pressed against a tree trunk.