“By themselves the figs could build a forest,” ecologist EJH Corner wrote almost a century ago. Now a fascinating book, Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers: the secret history and redemptive future of fig trees (titled Ladders to Heaven in the UK), delves anew into this tropical species’ biology and key ecological role, as well as its deep cultural (and spiritual) place in human history. Author Mike Shanahan also describes in detail how figs and wasps rely…
Can fig trees regrow lost rainforests?
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