EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Curtain Fig

White Fig (Ficus virens), Family Moraceae
Curtain Fig National Park, Atherton Tableland, Queensland, Australia

Explanation:  It's showtime, but this curtain will not rise.

This is the famous curtain fig located in the aptly-named Curtain Fig National Park, in the Atherton Tableland area, near Cairns, Queensland, in northeast tropical Australia.  It is a white fig, but was given the "curtain" name for ... well, pretty obvious reasons here.   
  

What we are seeing as the "curtain" is a massive array of aerial roots of the fig.  These roots are part of the entire tree, not an epiphyte attached to another tree.  

White figs are strangler figs that do start off by embracing, then sometimes engulfing, another tree, as twining vines.  This curtain fig has already strangled its tree host that has toppled, leaving on the standing fig in its place.  

  
Some sources note that the curtain fig is something like 50 m (164 ft) tall, and is over 500 years old.  

The area of Curtain Fig National Park is included in land of Traditional Owners, the Ngadjon-Jii, whom I honor here for welcoming in outsiders to this most special location.  

And, although I did not witness this here, I have seen how bird and other species can hide amidst aerial root systems such as these as nesting and hiding cover.  So this is an aerial parallel to what I've documented as similar wildlife refuge sites in "skirts" of other plants in other ecosystems.  
  

And, finally, here's the local trail sign that nice explains the origin and development of this most unique curtain fig (click for large image, as most photos on this page and across EPOW):