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I hope I get this right!

GPS location for this picture is S22.18765 E029.20165 - about 20 Km North of Satara on the road to Olifants.

Here are pictures of a common wild fig (Ficus Thonningii) (Please correct me here if I am wrong) growing on the stump of a dead leadwood tree.

Notice also the dead trunk of a leadwood on the right of this picture.





The bark of the ficus is quite worn suggesting that this is an old ficus. I have watched it for the last 15 years or so.



Another ficus started to grow on the other stump.

Hi Madalla and welcome to the boards Incredible stuff and great snaps . Amazing how you have been watching it for so long! I wish I knew my trees better but some of it is pretty tough stuff to sometimes In Pretoriuskop there is a tree very near to the pool an I wish I could remember all the details but the bird drops a seed into the crook of this specific tree and very slowly it grows and eventually chokes the host tree. A very specific situation and as far as I was aware, pretty unique.Wish I could remember the names and the whole story but maybe someone else can shed light on it. This seems remarkably similar so maybe not so unique after all ------

Madalla , welcome to the forum
This is so interesting , and very very observant of you . Well done
Sincerely hope you will continue to show us more interesting observations .

Hi Madalla, and welcome.

Most likely Ficus petersii, Peters Fig, if you follow the Mpumalanga tree book (whose scientific editor was John Burrows, our local tame world expert on figs. Stranglers are not that rare among figs. If anybody wants to see one up close and personal, the one I show people is on the old main walk in Durban Botanical Garden, just north of the gate into the property of the Kwazulu-Natal Herbarium (where I work). Here a Natal Fig is strangling a flame tree -- can't say I've seen them that often on leadwoods, though. The birds love that strangler's fruits, and deposit the seeds liberally around the area. As a result all of us at the Herbarium are only too aware that this one can be a strangler or a rock-splitter, depending on where the seeds fall -- we're for ever removing seedlings from walls and gutters! If we didn't, the place would look like Angkor Wat before restoration, in no time flat.