Ficus xylophylla: Fruiting at Badas Peat Swamp Forest, Brunei.
For the exact location see the orange circle in the map below.
All photos by Nick Hoggerzin.
According to Nick, the ripe figs are sweet, thick, fleshy and tasty with a slight acidity and very popular with the local fruit pigeons.
Photos taken 13 June 2021. Compare with the same unripe F. xylophylla figs photographed on 30 April 2021.
As a matter of note, no ripe figs in Borneo are poisonous although some fig fruits are more edible than others. Never eat unripe figs where latex is still present in the cut figs. The latex or getah (milky white sap) of some fig species can be highly irritant e.g. Ficus septica and Ficus albipila.
Also some 2/3 of Bornean fig species are dioecious (separate male and female figs). Birds and mammals do not eat male figs probably because they taste nasty but they are unlikely to be toxic. Male fig fruits can be identified by the presence of tiny fig wasps and the absence of seeds. Ripe female figs have seeds but no fig wasps.
Note: All the strangler species in Sections Conosycea and Urostigma are monoecious (both sexes in the same fig fruit) and ripe figs contain both wasps and seeds. Ficus xyllophylla is a monoecious strangler in Section Conosycea.
