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climbing fig, creeping fig

Florida strangler, Florida strangler fig, golden fig, strangler fig

Habit Trees, evergreen, to 20 m.
Roots

adventitious, nodal.

aerial, sometimes present on branches, pendent, sometimes reaching ground and forming pillar-roots.

Bark

gray, smooth.

Branches

appressed-pubescent when young, glabrous in age.

Branchlets

yellow.

Leaves

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.

blade ovate to oblong or obovate, 6-12(-15) × 3.5-6 cm, leathery, base rounded to cuneate, margins entire, apex obtuse or shortly and bluntly acuminate;

surfaces abaxially and adaxially glabrous;

basal veins 1(-2) pairs;

lateral veins fewer than 10, if more these not uniformly spaced.

Woody

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

Syconia

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.

usually paired, usually sessile, rarely with peduncles to 5 mm, red or yellow, obovoid, 6-15 mm diam., glabrous; subtending bracts 2, 3-5 mm, glabrous;

ostiole prominent, closed by 3 conspicuous scales.

Ficus pumila

Ficus aurea

Phenology Flowering all year. Flowering spring–summer.
Habitat Disturbed thickets Frequent in swamps, tropical hammocks, borders of mangrove swamps
Elevation 0-10 m (0-0 ft) 0-10 m (0-0 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
FL; native to s Asia; se Asia [Introduced in North America]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
FL; West Indies
[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. benghalensis, F. benjamina, F. carica, F. citrifolia, F. elastica, F. microcarpa, F. religiosa
F. americana, F. benghalensis, F. benjamina, F. carica, F. citrifolia, F. elastica, F. microcarpa, F. pumila, F. religiosa
Synonyms F. aurea var. latifolia
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1060. (1753) Nuttall: N. Amer. Sylv. 2: 4, plate 43. (1846)
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