Many start off as mere epiphytes, with the 'strangler' forms of many species having their fruits deposited in the top of a canopy by a fig eating animal, and growing their roots down around a host tree. Some species of figs in the Australian rainforests have evolved the unusual habits of 'ramiflory' and 'cauliflory', the fruiting on the branches and the main trunk respectively.

They do not have flowers in the traditional sense, for the tiny reproductive parts are hidden inside round receptacles that we normally recognize as the fruit. Figs have a highly specific and reliant relationship with 'fig wasps' (family Agaonidae); the plant relies on the wasps for pollination, while the wasps rely on receptacle to reproduce. These tiny flowers of each particular species of fig are pollinated only by another particular species of 'fig wasp' (family Agaonidae). The plant relies on the wasps for pollination, while the wasps rely on the 'fruit' to reproduce within.  Because of this relationship, it is thought figs have to provide these fruit receptacles more or less continuously, and thus many figs fruit asynchronously. That is, trees fruit out of sync with other individuals of the same species.

Cauliforous Fig