Ficus pumila |
Ficus aurea |
|
---|---|---|
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 |
FL; native to s Asia; se Asia [Introduced in North America]
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FL; West Indies
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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 | ||
Synonyms | F. aurea var. latifolia | |
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1060. (1753) | Nuttall: N. Amer. Sylv. 2: 4, plate 43. (1846) |
Web links |