Flora of North America species comparison

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Moraceae

Ficus

mulberry family

fig, figuier
Habit Trees, shrubs, herbs, or vines, deciduous or evergreen, frequently with milky sap. Trees, shrubs, or woody vines, evergreen or deciduous, commonly epiphytic or scandent as seedlings; sap milky.
Leaves

blade: margins entire, toothed, or lobed;

venation pinnate or with 3-5 basal palmate veins;

cystoliths often present in epidermal cells.

blade: margins entire (lobed in F. carica), rarely dentate;

venation pinnate or nearly palmate.
Inflorescences

racemes, cymes, or capitula.

small, borne on inner walls of fruitlike and fleshy receptacle (syconium).
Flowers

unisexual, staminate and pistillate on same or different plants, small, occasionally on flattened torus, more often enclosed within fleshy, flask-shaped receptacle (syconium);

sepals 2-6, distinct or partly connate (vestigial in Brosimum).

staminate and pistillate on same plant.
Staminate flowers

stamens equal in number to sepals or calyx lobes and opposite them, straight or inflexed;

anthers 1-2-locular.

sessile or pedicellate;

calyx of 2-6 sepals;

stamens 1-2, straight.
Pistillate flowers

sepals or calyx lobes 4, ± connate;

pistils 1, 1-2-carpellate;

ovary 1, superior or inferior, 1(-2)-locular;

ovules 1 per locule;

styles or style branches 1-2;

stigmas 1-2, entire.

sessile;

ovary 1-locular;

style unbranched, lateral.
Fruits

multiple (syncarps);

individual achenes or drupelets partly or completely enclosed by enlarged common receptacle or by individual calyces.

Terminal

buds surrounded by pair of stipules.
Syconia

globose to pyriform;

achenes completely embedded in enlarged, fleshy, common receptacle and accessible by apical opening (ostiole) closed by small scales.
x

= 13.

Moraceae

Ficus
Distribution
Widespread in tropical and subtropical regions; less common in temperate areas
[BONAP county map]
from USDA
Tropics and subtropics; chiefly Asian
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Genera ca. 40, species nearly 1100 (7 genera, 18 species in the flora).

Members of the large and diverse mulberry family are mainly woody and tropical; they are most abundant in Asia. The largest genera are Ficus, with approximately 750 species, and Dorstenia, with about 170 species. The family includes important timber trees, e.g., Chlorophora excelsa (Welwitsch) Bentham, iroko, from tropical Africa; Brosimum guianense (Aublet) Huber, letterwood, snakewood; and Ficus spp. Genera with species bearing edible fruits include the mulberries, Morus spp.; breadfruit and jackfruit, e.g., Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg and A. heterophyllus Lamarck; and figs, Ficus spp. Several species of Ficus are commonly cultivated in subtropical regions of the United States. These include F. carica Linnaeus; F. elastica Roxburgh ex Hornemann, India rubber plant; F. benghalensis Linnaeus, banyan; F. benjamina Linnaeus, weeping fig; F. pumila Linnaeus, creeping fig; and F. microcarpa Linnaeus f., Indian-laurel.

Rubber plants and weeping figs are commonly sold as houseplants. Economically, the most important species are those associated with the silk trade. Morus alba Linnaeus, M. indica Linnaeus, M. laevigata Wallis, and M. serrata Roxburgh, cultivated in many temperate and tropical countries, provide the natural food source for the silkworm, Bombyx mori Linnaeus.

Cudrania tricuspidata (Carrière) Bureau ex Lavallée, used as a food source for silkworms when Morus spp. are in short supply, is cultivated in North America as a hedge plant. The fruit is edible. Native to Korea and China, C. tricuspidata is known from a collection made in 1956 in McIntosh County, Georgia (S. B. Jones Jr. and N. C. Coile 1988), and it is naturalized in Orange County, North Carolina (R. D. Whetstone, pers. comm.).

(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.)
Key
1. Herbs.
→ 2
1. Trees, shrubs, or vines.
→ 3
2. Plants lacking evident aerial stems, rhizomatous, perennial; inflorescences axillary, long-pedunculate.
Dorstenia
2. Plants caulescent, taprooted, annual; inflorescences axillary, short-pedunculate.
Fatoua
3. Flowers all borne on inside of syconium; terminal vegetative bud surrounded by pair of stipules.
Ficus
3. Flowers not borne on inside of syconium or only a solitary female flower immersed in receptacle; terminal vegetative bud scaly, not surrounded by pair of stipules.
→ 4
4. Margins of leaf blade toothed, often lobed; venation appearing palmate, or weakly 3-veined from base.
→ 5
4. Margins of leaf blade entire, never lobed; venation pinnate.
→ 6
5. Pistillate inflorescences globose; styles unbranched.
Broussonetia
5. Pistillate inflorescences cylindric; styles 2-branched.
Morus
6. Leaf blade ovate to lanceolate, not leathery; trees deciduous; syncarps 8-12 cm diam.
Maclura
6. Leaf blade oblong, leathery; trees evergreen; syncarps 1.5 cm diam.
Brosimum
1. Plants climbing, attaching by nodal adventitious roots, or trailing; leaves dimorphic.
F. pumila
1. Plants erect or essentially so; leaves monomorphic.
→ 2
2. Leaf blade palmately 3–5-lobed, pubescent.
F. carica
2. Leaf blade entire, glabrous (abaxially puberulent in F. benghalensis).
→ 3
3. Apex of leaf blade abruptly long-caudate or long-acuminate, ca. 1/2 length of blade.
F. religiosa
3. Apex of leaf blade obtuse to acute or if caudate, then much shorter in proportion to blade.
→ 4
4. Basal leaf veins (2–)3–4 pairs; fruit pubescent.
F. benghalensis
4. Basal leaf veins 1(–2) pairs; fruit glabrous.
→ 5
5. Leaf blade with more than 10 uniform lateral veins, these regularly spaced.
→ 6
5. Leaf blade with fewer than 10 lateral veins, or if more than 10, these not uniformly spaced.
→ 7
6. Leaf blade 4–6(–11) cm; stipules 0.8–1.2 cm; syconia nearly globose.
F. benjamina
6. Leaf blade 9–30 cm; stipules 3–10 cm; syconia oblong-ovoid.
F. elastica
7. Syconia on peduncles (2–)5–10(–15) mm.
→ 8
7. Syconia sessile or subsessile, rarely with peduncles to 5 mm.
→ 9
8. Petiole (0.7–)1.5–6 cm; syconia spotted; base of leaf blade usually cordate or rounded to obtuse.
F. citrifolia
8. Petiole 0.2–1 cm; syconia not spotted; base of leaf blade usually acute or cuneate to obtuse.
F. americana
9. Leaf blade 6–12(–15) cm; syconia 6–15 mm diam.
F. aurea
9. Leaf blade 3–11 cm; syconia 5–6 mm diam.
F. microcarpa
Source FNA vol. 3, p. 388. Treatment author: Richard P. Wunderlin. FNA vol. 3. Treatment author: Richard P. Wunderlin.
Parent taxa Moraceae
Subordinate taxa
Brosimum, Broussonetia, Dorstenia, Fatoua, Ficus, Maclura, Morus
F. americana, F. aurea, F. benghalensis, F. benjamina, F. carica, F. citrifolia, F. elastica, F. microcarpa, F. pumila, F. religiosa
Name authority Link Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1059. 175: Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 482. (1754)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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