Ficus carica |
Ficus |
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common fig, edible fig, fiku, piku |
fig, figuier |
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Habit | Shrubs or small trees, deciduous, to 5 m. Roots not adventitious. | Trees, shrubs, or woody vines, evergreen or deciduous, commonly epiphytic or scandent as seedlings; sap milky. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bark | grayish, slightly roughened. |
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Branchlets | pubescent. |
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Leaves | blade obovate, nearly orbiculate, or ovate, palmately 3-5-lobed, 15-30 × 15-30 cm, base cordate, margins undulate or irregularly dentate, apex acute to obtuse; surfaces abaxially and adaxially scabrous-pubescent; basal veins 5 pairs; lateral veins irregularly spaced. |
blade: margins entire (lobed in F. carica), rarely dentate; venation pinnate or nearly palmate. |
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Inflorescences | small, borne on inner walls of fruitlike and fleshy receptacle (syconium). |
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Flowers | staminate and pistillate on same plant. |
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Staminate flowers | sessile or pedicellate; calyx of 2-6 sepals; stamens 1-2, straight. |
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Pistillate flowers | sessile; ovary 1-locular; style unbranched, lateral. |
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Syconia | solitary, sessile, green, yellow, or red-purple, pyriform, 5-8 cm, pubescent; peduncle ca. 1 cm; subtending bracts ovate, 1-2 mm; ostiole with 3 subtending bracts, umbonate. |
globose to pyriform; achenes completely embedded in enlarged, fleshy, common receptacle and accessible by apical opening (ostiole) closed by small scales. |
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Terminal | buds surrounded by pair of stipules. |
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x | = 13. |
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Ficus carica |
Ficus |
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Phenology | Flowering spring–summer. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Disturbed sites | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0-300 m (0-1000 ft) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
CA; FL; MA; NC; SC; Mexico; West Indies; native to Asia [Introduced in North America]
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Tropics and subtropics; chiefly Asian |
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Discussion | Ficus carica is known to escape in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, although no specific localities are documented. Ficus carica was first known from Caria in southwestern Asia. It is cultivated for its edible fruit and becomes established outside of cultivation only sporadically in the United States. It can sometimes be found persisting around old habitations and old orchards. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Species ca. 750 (10 in the flora). Worldwide, Ficus is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. Members of the genus are usually treated as a separate tribe within Moraceae because of their unique inflorescence and wasp-dependent system of pollination. The floral characters (especially of the American species, which are quite uniform) are exceedingly difficult to use or of little value in distinguishing species. Therefore they are not used in the species descriptions. The form of the syconium, however, is often significant and taxonomically useful. Ficus pseudocarica Miquel was cited by P. A. Munz (1974) as an occasional escape in the Santa Barbara region. It is not cited by other workers, and I have seen no specimens. Ficus rubiginosa Desfontaines ex Ventenat cultivar `Florida', a species native to Australia, has recently been reported as naturalized in the Los Angeles area (Michael O'Brien, pers. comm.). It is a small tree with rusty-pubescent branchlets, petiole, and abaxial leaf surfaces; ovate to elliptic-oblong, leathery, 10-cm leaves; and paired axillary, globose, warty, rusty-pubescent syconia 1 cm in diameter. Vernacular names include Port Jackson fig, rusty fig, and littleleaf fig. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 3. | FNA vol. 3. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Moraceae > Ficus | Moraceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1059. (1753) | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1059. 175: Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 482. (1754) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Web links |