Ficus benghalensis |
Ficus pumila |
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banyan tree, Indian banyan |
climbing fig, creeping fig |
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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. |
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Branches | appressed-pubescent when young, glabrous in age. |
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Branchlets | puberulent, glabrescent in age. |
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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. |
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Ficus benghalensis |
Ficus pumila |
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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 |
FL; Asia (native to Pakistan and India) [Introduced in North America] |
FL; native to s Asia; se Asia [Introduced in North America]
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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.) |
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Source | FNA vol. 3. | FNA vol. 3. |
Parent taxa | Moraceae > Ficus | Moraceae > Ficus |
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1059. (1753) | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1060. (1753) |
Web links |