Planet Ficus Monthly Roundup #9
Living bridges. Flying foxes. Tennis superstar. Lost temple. Animated banyan. Primate ladders.
Welcome to the Planet Ficus Monthly Roundup
Each month, I’ll bring you stories from around the world that reveal just how extraordinary fig trees are — not just biologically, but culturally, spiritually and artistically.
In this roundup, featuring news from January 2026, you’ll find: living bridges, flying foxes, a tennis superstar, a lost temple, an animated banyan, a ladder for primates, and more.
Let’s dive in.
Living Fig Tree Bridges
I have written here before about the awesome living bridges of the Khasi Hills in Meghalaya, a state in northeast India. See:
Created over decades — and in some cases lasting for centuries — the bridges are formed from Ficus elastica roots that local people guide across streams and gorges, shaping them into stable structures. They were in the news twice in January.
The Indian government awarded the Padma Shri — one of its highest civilian honours — to Hally War, a local man who has spent nearly 60 years nurturing living fig tree bridges and preserving the traditional knowledge of how to make them.
“I am grateful and happy that people are now understanding the value of our traditional knowledge.” War told India Today NE: “This honour belongs to my village and to our forefathers who taught us to live with nature, not against it.”
On 29 January, India submitted its formal proposal for the living bridges to be included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Meghalaya’s Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said: “We are hopeful that the living root bridges will be inscribed this year, ensuring that the indigenous communities, the true guardians of this living heritage, receive the global recognition they so richly deserve.”
Pacific Figs, Spirits and Stories
Else Demeulenaere wrote about a long‑lived fig tree (Ficus microcarpa) on the campus of the University of Guam, explaining that it was likely spared because of its spiritual importance to the Indigenous Chamorro people.
Nalau Bingeding — an environmental consultant from Papua New Guinea — and George Weiblen, a biologist who has studied the country’s Ficus species, have both shared folk stories with me about strangler figs. I published those stories here:
Friends of the Fig Trees
The Australian Open tennis tournament once again gave journalists around the world an excuse to tell a familiar story whenever Novak Djokovic is competing. That’s because he is known for visiting, climbing, hugging and meditating beneath a big fig tree in Melbourne‘s botanical gardens.
“That is my oldest friend here in Melbourne,” Djokovic told Agence France Presse. “He has been there to heal my wounds and give me company. It’s a beautiful connection, nature is such a powerful ally. We have a friendship going over 20 years.”
Djokovic’s affection for the tree contrasts sharply with darker fig-related news from the same week. On the day the Australian Open began, The Guardian reported that thousands of large fruit bats called flying foxes had died in a heatwave in Melbourne. It was the largest mass mortality event for these animals since the ‘Black Summer’ of 2019-2020 — and the third such event since 2008. Over a lifetime, each bat disperses millions of fig seeds. Every heatwave tears at that ancient bond.
Figs in Art and Culture
Artist Eeman Masood shared her new hand-painted animation, a mesmerizing six-minute visual rumination on the banyan tree’s (Ficus benghalensis) place in nature and culture, spanning the earthly and celestial. Titled There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen, the animation will be shown publicly on nearly a hundred digital displays in Times Square, New York City at three minutes to midnight each night in February. You can watch it here:
In the United States, the National Garden Bureau named 2026 the ‘Year of the Ficus’. Of course, I would argue that every year is the Year of the Ficus — and not just for houseplants.
A 900-year-old temple from the later Chola period was rediscovered after being hidden for centuries beneath a massive banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis) in southern India.
Figs of Borneo
Quentin Phillipps’s website Figs of Borneo has an interesting new post about Ficus densechini — a fig species that grows from a seed on the forest floor and then climbs up large trees to obtain more light. Over time, the spiny stem of Ficus densechini forms a rigid “ladder” that helps seed-dispersing primates and civets reach its large figs. The structure simultaneously supports its host tree — until both eventually die together.
Other Figs of Borneo posts in the past month include:
Some great photos of Ficus kerkhovenii — Borneo’s biggest and most variable strangler fig.
Images of fig-wasps emerging from Ficus heterophylla figs.
The first record of Ficus altissima in Borneo.
Figs and Forest Politics
Here at Planet Ficus, I wrote about how fig trees shaped the thinking of India’s pre-eminent ecologist, Madhav Gadgil, who died on 7 January. From a night spent sheltering in a wild Ficus in the Western Ghats to decades of writing on ecology, culture and governance, figs recur in Gadgil’s work as both biological keystones and moral touchstones.
My piece explores how his ideas were shaped by the ecological knowledge and traditions of forest-dependent communities — and why he believed lasting conservation must place power back in their hands.
Over To You
Do you have a memory, photo, or observation involving fig trees? I’d love to hear from you. Send your story or image to planetficus@substack.com — I’ll feature selected entries in future editions.
Thank you for reading
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The animated banyan by Eeman Masood is mesmerizing. I can't imagine watching it in Times Square.