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banyan tree, Indian banyan

climbing fig, creeping fig

Habit Trees, evergreen, to 30 m. Roots aerial, often descending to ground level and forming pillar-roots Bark of trunks and older branches brown, smooth.
Roots

adventitious, nodal.

Branches

appressed-pubescent when young, glabrous in age.

Branchlets

puberulent, glabrescent in age.

Leaves

blade ovate, 10-30 × 7-20 cm, leathery, base cordate, margins entire, apex obtuse;

surfaces abaxially puberulent, adaxially glabrous;

basal veins (2-)3-4 pairs, 1/3-1/2 length of blade, reticulations regular;

lateral veins 5-6(-7) pairs.

blade oblong to ovate-elliptic or obovate, 4-10 × 2.5-4.5 cm, those of appressed climbing stems distichous, appressed, smaller (than those of loose, extended, flowering stems), spreading, leathery, base obtuse to rounded, margins recurved, apex obtuse to nearly acute;

surfaces abaxially glabrous or puberulent on veins, adaxially glabrous, prominently reticulate;

basal pair of veins 1;

lateral pairs of veins 3-6, straight;

secondary veins prominent.

Syconia

paired, sessile, orange or red, depressed-globose, 1.5-2 × 2-2.5 mm, pubescent; subtending bracts ovate, 3-7 mm, puberulous;

ostiole closed by 3 flat or nearly umbonate apical bracts 3-4 mm wide.

solitary, pedunculate, green, oblong, obovoid, pyriform, or nearly globose, 3-4 × 3-4 cm, slightly pubescent but becoming glabrescent in age;

peduncle thick, 8-15 mm; subtending bracts ovate, 5-7 mm;

ostiole closed by 3 bracts, umbonate.

Woody

vines or sprawling shrubs, vines closely appressed to substrate, shrubs loosely ascending, evergreen.

Ficus benghalensis

Ficus pumila

Phenology Flowering all year. Flowering all year.
Habitat Disturbed thickets Disturbed thickets
Elevation 0-10 m (0-0 ft) 0-10 m (0-0 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
FL; Asia (native to Pakistan and India) [Introduced in North America]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
FL; native to s Asia; se Asia [Introduced in North America]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Ficus pumila is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental on walls.

Ficus scandens Lamarck is a nomenclaturally illegitimate name.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 3. FNA vol. 3.
Parent taxa Moraceae > Ficus Moraceae > Ficus
Sibling taxa
F. americana, F. aurea, F. benjamina, F. carica, F. citrifolia, F. elastica, F. microcarpa, F. pumila, F. religiosa
F. americana, F. aurea, F. benghalensis, F. benjamina, F. carica, F. citrifolia, F. elastica, F. microcarpa, F. religiosa
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1059. (1753) Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1060. (1753)
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