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Two stranglers entwined at the Sarawak Muzium, Kuching

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ABOVE: If you have a day to spare in Kuching,  the Sarawak Muzium and the large park behind are well worth a visit. The displays are excellent and very informative. 

SARAWAK MUSEUM (1891), KUCHING, SARAWAK

“The museum was built by Charles Brooke the white rajah of Sarawak for exhibiting the handicrafts of the indigenous people and wildlife of Sarawak”

This vegetable mess growing next to the small car park of the Sarawak Muzium in Kuching has a core component of two different entwined stranglers but what are they ?
These fallen leaves of Ficus tinctoria var gibbosa are very distinctive.
But what is this  sapling fig growing (top right) in a  rain gutter ?

Ficus microcarpa  growing in a gutter of one of the galleries at the Sarawak Muzium .  Whilst the gutter is modern, the roof itself is made of Belian ironwood shingles. These shingles look as if they were the original  shingles laid in 1891, and  still going strong !
A close examination shows that the core of the structure is a massive Ficus microcarpa with banyan stilt roots. The Ficus tinctoria var gibbosa  obviously arrived later and is twined around the base of the Ficus microcarpa.

 

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