Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig (F. carica) is a temperate species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region, which has been widely cultivated from ancient times for its fruit, also referred to as figs. The fruit of most other species are also edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are extremely important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of considerable cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses.
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed on the axis of a plant. The modifications can involve the length and the nature of the internodes and the phyllotaxis, as well as variations in the proportions, compressions, swellings, adnations, connations and reduction of main and secondary axes. One can also define an inflorescence as the reproductive portion of a plant that bears a cluster of flowers in a specific pattern.
Ficus macrophylla, commonly known as the Moreton Bay fig or Australian banyan, is a large evergreen banyan tree of the Mulberry Family (Moraceae) native to eastern Australia, from the Wide Bay–Burnett region in the north to the Illawarra in New South Wales, as well as Lord Howe Island where the subspecies F. m. columnaris is a banyan form covering 2.5 acres or more of ground. Its common name is derived from Moreton Bay in Queensland, Australia. It is best known for its imposing buttress roots.
Ficus rubiginosa, the rusty fig or Port Jackson fig, is a species of flowering plant native to eastern Australia in the genus Ficus. Beginning as a seedling that grows on other plants (hemiepiphyte) or rocks (lithophyte), F. rubiginosa matures into a tree 30 m (100 ft) high and nearly as wide with a yellow-brown buttressed trunk. The leaves are oval and glossy green and measure from 4 to 19.3 cm long and 1.25 to 13.2 cm wide.
Ficus benjamina, commonly known as weeping fig, benjamin fig or ficus tree, and often sold in stores as just ficus, is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae, native to Asia and Australia. It is the official tree of Bangkok. The species is also naturalized in the West Indies and in the states of Florida and Arizona in the United States. In its native range, its small fruit are favored by some birds.
Aralia spinosa, commonly known as devil's walking stick, is a woody species of plant in the genus Aralia, family Araliaceae, native to eastern North America. The various names refer to the viciously sharp, spiny stems, petioles, and even leaf midribs. It has also been known as Angelica-tree.
The plant species Musa ingens, also known as the giant highland banana or Oem, is the physically largest member of the family Musaceae and the only member of the section Ingentimusa. Growing in the tropical montane forests of New Guinea - Arfak Mountains Regency in Indonesia, its leaves can reach a length of 5 meters and a width of 1 m. This, the largest herbaceous plant on earth, was completely unknown to science prior to 1960.
Polyscias aemiliguineae is a species of plant in the family Araliaceae. It is endemic to Réunion.
Ficus crassiuscula is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae, native to Central America and north-western parts of South America.
Ficus dammaropsis, called kapiak in Tok Pisin, is a tropical fig tree with huge pleated leaves 60 cm (24 in) across and up to 90 cm in length. on petioles as much as thirteen inches long and one inch thick. These emerge from a stipular sheath up to fourteen inches long, the largest of any Dicot. It is native to the highlands and highlands fringe of New Guinea. It generally grows at altitudes of between 850 and 2,750 metres. Its fruit, the world's largest figs (syconia), up to six inches in diameter, are edible but rarely eaten except as an emergency food. They are pollinated by the tiny wasp Ceratosolon abnormis. The young leaves are pickled or cooked and eaten as a vegetable with pig meat by highlanders.
Ficus obliqua, commonly known as the small-leaved fig, is a tree in the family Moraceae, native to eastern Australia, New Guinea, eastern Indonesia to Sulawesi and islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Previously known for many years as Ficus eugenioides, it is a banyan of the genus Ficus, which contains around 750 species worldwide in warm climates, including the edible fig. Beginning life as a seedling, which grows on other plants (epiphyte) or on rocks (lithophyte), F. obliqua can grow to 60 m (200 ft) high and nearly as wide with a pale grey buttressed trunk, and glossy green leaves.
Bagassa guianensis is a tree in the plant family Moraceae which is native to the Guianas and Brazil. It is valued as a timber tree and as a food tree for wildlife. The juvenile leaves are distinctly different in appearance from the mature leaves, and were once thought to belong to different species.
Ficus ingens, the red-leaved fig, is a fig species with an extensive range in the subtropical to dry tropical regions of Africa and southern Arabia. Despite its specific name, which means "huge", or "vast", it is usually a shrub or tree of modest proportions. It is a fig of variable habit depending on the local climate and substrate, typically a stunted subshrub on elevated rocky ridges, or potentially a large tree on warmer plains and lowlands. In 1829 the missionary Robert Moffat found a rare giant specimen, into which seventeen thatch huts of a native tribe were placed, so as to be out of reach of lions.
Dorstenia indica is a small plant species in the family Moraceae native to Southern India and Sri Lanka. It was first described by Robert Wight in 1853.
Artocarpus elasticus of the Mulberry Family (Moraceae) and commonly called terap nasi or terap, is a rainforest tree of maritime and mainland Southeast Asia, growing up to 45 metres (150 ft) in height with a diameter at breast height of about 1 metre (3 ft). The juvenile trees are noteworthy for producing a rosette of enormous deeply lobed leaves similar in shape to those of the white oak, but up to 2 metres (6 ft) long by about 1.2 metres (4 ft) in width. The stipules are up to eight inches long, among the largest known. These leaves emerge from leaf buds as long as 18 centimetres (7 in). The trees are dioecious. It produces a fruit like a small breadfruit. The male capitulae produce clouds of pollen, and pollenisation is apparently by wind.
Ficus salomonensis of the Solomon Islands is a palm-like sparingly branching mesocaul rainforest tree to about 26 feet in height. The main trunk and each branch of juvenile trees is topped by a rosette of huge leaves which are entire oblanceolate in form and up to 200 centimeters in length by 60 cm wide The adult trees have leaves up to 80 centimeters long by 30 cm in width. The fruit (syconia) are borne in clusters mostly on the trunk (cauliflory). It was discovered in 1912 but was not seen again until 1961 when it was re-discovered by E. J. H. Corner.
Chisocheton macrophyllus in the Mahogany family (Meliaceae) is a pachycaul rainforest tree of the East Indies and Malay Peninsula with very few upright limbs (reiterations) ultimately reaching a height of 115 feet. Each reiteration is topped by a tight rosette of once-pinnate leaves up to ten feet in length with up to 28 pairs of leaflets at any given time, each up to 15.5 inches long by 4.5 inches in width. Like all Chisocheton species, these leaves are indeterminate, forming a new pair of leaflets every few weeks or months. while the oldest pair may die. The cream colored flowers, 1.5 inches long with 4 or 5 petals, are arranged in a thyrse up to 32 inches long, followed by pyriform capsules up to six inches in diameter with 2 to 4 seeds each the size and shape of a brazilnut.
Chisocheton polyandrus, of the Mahogany Family (Meliaceae), is a species of pachycaulous, unbranched trees variously called "palmoids", "maypole trees" or "Corner Model Trees" occurring among several families of unrelated trees. C. polyandrus is native to Borneo, and grows up to a height of 49 feet in height, and may have small buttress roots or even prop roots. It is topped by a tight circle of indeterminate, once-pinnate leaves up to 5.5 feet in length, which may eventually have up to fourteen pairs of leaflets, acquired one pair at a time over a period of several months or years, each leaflet measuring up to 17 inches long by 5.5 inches in width. In mature leaves the oldest pair may die when a new pair is formed. The unbranched inflorescences are up to 6.5 feet long with the flowers occupying just the last foot (30 cm) or so, eventually hanging straight down as the weight of the fruit increases. The flowers are tubular, 1 to 1.25 inches in length. Petals 5 or 6, white with red blush and having up to 14 stamens. The fruit has three seeds, each covered with a red aril.
Mora megistosperma is a species of rainforest tree in the Bean Family (Leguminosae, or Fabaceae and in the Cassia subfamily Caesalpinioideae. It is commonly called Mora or Mangle Nato It is found in Costa Rica, Panama Colombia and Ecuador. It grows 147 feet in height and up to thirteen feet diameter at breast height. It is most noted for producing the largest seeds of any Dicot plant ; and up to 7 inches long by six inches wide, and up to four inches thick. and can weigh up to 2.2 pounds. and is exceeded only by Lodoicea and Cocos nucifera var. gigantea. The white flowers are in little spikes about five inches long. The leaves are paripinnate with just two pairs of ovate or oblong leaflets, each leaflet up to seven inches long.
