Ficus elastica leaves the latex of the plant oozing, is coated with cuttings hormones and tightly wrapped with moist foam. The whole is covered with a plastic film and left a few months at the end of which new roots have developed from the axillary buds. The stem is then weaned and the new plant can be repotted. All parts of the plant contain an abundant milky white latex, which has been tested for use in the manufacture of rubber, but without economic and technical results; the rubber is actually produced from the sap of the rubber tree . In cultivation, it
Tree a stucco-like inner surface. Tree shaping has been practised for at least several hundred years, the oldest known examples being the living root bridges built and maintained by the Khasi people of Meghalaya, India using the roots of the rubber tree ("Ficus elastica"). Cork is produced from the thick bark of the cork oak ("Quercus suber"). It is harvested from the living trees about once every ten years in an environmentally sustainable industry. More than half the world's cork comes from Portugal and is largely used to make stoppers for wine bottles. Other uses include floor tiles, bulletin boards, balls,