Ficus

Ficus () is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte 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 (from Afghanistan to Portugal), 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.

Description

]] Ficus is a pan-tropical genus of trees, shrubs and vines occupying a wide variety of ecological niches; most are evergreen, but some deciduous species are endemic to areas outside of the tropics and to higher elevations. Fig species are characterized by their unique inflorescence and distinctive pollination syndrome, which utilizes wasp species belonging to the Agaonidae family for pollination.

The specific identification of many of the species can be difficult, but figs as a group are relatively easy to recognize. Many have aerial roots and a distinctive shape or habit, and their fruits distinguish them from other plants. The fig fruit is an enclosed inflorescence, sometimes referred to as a syconium, an urn-like structure lined on the inside with the fig's tiny flowers. The unique fig pollination system, involving tiny, highly specific wasps, known as fig wasps that enter these closed inflorescences to both pollinate and lay their own eggs, has been a constant source of inspiration and wonder to biologists. Finally, there are three vegetative traits that together are unique to figs. All figs possess a white to yellowish sap (latex), some in copious quantities; the twig has paired stipules or a circular stipule scar if the stipules have fallen off; and the lateral veins at the base of the leaf are steep, forming a tighter angle with the midrib than the other lateral veins, a feature referred to as a "tri-veined".

There are no unambiguous older fossils of Ficus. However, current molecular clock estimates indicate that Ficus is a relatively ancient genus being at least 60 million years old,

Ecology and uses

feeding on White Fig (Ficus virens) fruit]] Figs are keystone species in many rainforest ecosystems. Their fruit are a key resource for some frugivores including fruit bats, capuchin monkeys, langurs and mangabeys. They are even more important for some birds. Asian barbets, pigeons, hornbills, fig-parrots and bulbuls are examples of taxa that may almost entirely subsist on figs when these are in plenty. Many Lepidoptera caterpillars feed on fig leaves, for example several Euploea species (Crow butterflies), the Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus), the Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes), the Brown Awl (Badamia exclamationis), and Chrysodeixis eriosoma, Choreutidae and Copromorphidae moths. The Citrus long-horned beetle (Anoplophora chinensis), for example, has larvae that feed on wood, including that of fig trees; it can become a pest in fig plantations. Similarly, the Sweet Potato Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) is frequently found as a pest on figs grown as potted plants and is spread through the export of these plants to other localities. For a list of other diseases common to fig trees, see List of foliage plant diseases (Moraceae).

(F. religiosa)]] The wood of fig trees is often soft and the latex precludes its use for many purposes. It was used to make mummy caskets in Ancient Egypt. Certain fig species (mainly F. cotinifolia, F. insipida and F. padifolia) are traditionally used in Mesoamerica to produce papel amate (Nahuatl: āmatl). Mutuba (F. natalensis) is used to produce barkcloth in Uganda. Pou (F. religiosa) leaves' shape inspired one of the standard kbach rachana, decorative elements in Cambodian architecture. Weeping Fig (F. benjamina) and Indian Rubber Plant (F. elastica) are identified as powerful air-cleaning plants in the NASA Clean Air Study. Indian Banyan (F. bengalensis) and the Indian Rubber Plant, as well as other species, have use in herbalism. The latter is known to be a hyperaccumulator of benzene and methane, and urban or potted plants should be considered toxic for that reason.

Huexotzinco Codex, painted on āmatl]] Figs have figured prominently in some human cultures. There is evidence that figs, specifically the Common Fig (F. carica) and Sycamore Fig (F. sycomorus), were among the first — if not the very first — plant species that were deliberately bred for agriculture in the Middle East, starting more than 11,000 years ago. Nine subfossil F. carica figs dated to about 9400–9200 BC were found in the early Neolithic village Gilgal I (in the Jordan Valley, 13 km north of Jericho). These were a parthenocarpic type and thus apparently an early cultivar. This find predates the cultivation of grain in the Middle East by many hundreds of years.

Cultural and spiritual significance

Fig trees have profoundly influenced culture through several religious traditions. Among the more famous species are the Sacred Fig tree (Pipal, Bodhi, Bo, or Po, Ficus religiosa) and the Banyan Fig (Ficus benghalensis). The oldest living plant of known planting date is a Ficus religiosa tree known as the Sri Maha Bodhi planted in the temple at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka by King Tissa in 288 BC. The common fig is one of the two sacred trees of Islam, and there is a sura in Quran named "The Fig" or At-Tin (سوره تین), and in East Asia, figs are important in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. The Buddha is traditionally held to have found bodhi (enlightenment) while meditating under a Sacred Fig (F. religiosa). The same species was Ashvastha, the "world tree" of Hinduism. The Plaksa Pra-sravana was said to be a fig tree between the roots of which the Sarasvati River sprang forth; it is usually held to be a Sacred Fig but more probably seems to be a Wavy-leaved Fig (F. infectoria). The Common Fig tree is cited in the Bible, where in Genesis 3:7, Adam and Eve cover their nakedness with fig leaves. The fig fruit is also included in the list of food found in the Promised Land, according to the Torah (Deut. 8). Jesus cursed a fig tree for bearing no fruit (). The fig tree was sacred in ancient Cyprus where it was a symbol of fertility.

Fig pollination and fig fruit

syconium (fruit)]] Many are grown for their fruits, though only Ficus carica is cultivated to any extent for this purpose. Furthermore, the fig fruits, important as both food and traditional medicine, contain laxative substances, flavonoids, sugars, vitamins A and C, acids and enzymes. However, figs are skin allergens, and the sap is a serious eye irritant. The fig is a false fruit or multiple fruit, in which the flowers and seeds grow together to form a single mass. The genus Dorstenia, also in the figs family (Moraceae), exhibits similar tiny flowers arranged on a receptacle but in this case the receptacle is a more or less flat, open surface.

Depending on the species, each fruit can contain up to several hundred to several thousand seeds.

A fig "fruit" is derived from a specially adapted type of inflorescence (an arrangement of multiple flowers). In this case, it is an involuted, nearly closed receptacle with many small flowers arranged on the inner surface. Thus the actual flowers of the fig are unseen unless the fig is cut open. In Chinese the fig is called wú huā guǒ (), "fruit without flower". In Bengali, where the Common Fig is called dumur, it is referenced in a proverb: tumi jeno dumurer phool hoe gele ("You have become [invisible like] the dumur flower").

The syconium often has a bulbous shape with a small opening (the ostiole) at the outward end that allows access to pollinators. The flowers are pollinated by very small wasps that crawl through the opening in search of a suitable place to lay eggs. Without this pollinator service fig trees cannot reproduce by seed. In turn, the flowers provide a safe haven and nourishment for the next generation of wasps. This accounts for the frequent presence of wasp larvae in the fruit, and has led to a coevolutionary relationship. Technically, a fig fruit proper would be one of the many tiny mature, seed-bearing flowers found inside one fig — if you cut open a fresh fig, the flowers will appear as fleshy "threads", each bearing a single seed inside.

Fig plants can be monoecious (hermaphrodite) or gynodioecious (hermaphrodite and female). Nearly half of fig species are gynodioecious, and have plants with inflorescences (syconium) with long styled pistillate flowers, or have plants with staminate flowers mixed with short styled pistillate flowers. The long flowers styles tend to prevent wasps from laying their eggs within the ovules, while the short styled flowers are accessible for egg laying.

All the native fig trees of the American continent are hermaphrodites, as well as species like Indian Banyan (F. benghalensis), Weeping Fig (F. benjamina), Indian Rubber Plant (F. elastica), Fiddle-leaved Fig (F. lyrata), Moreton Bay Fig (F. macrophylla), Chinese Banyan (F. microcarpa), Sacred Fig (F. religiosa) and Sycamore Fig (F. sycomorus).

On the other hand the Common Fig (Ficus carica) is a gynodioecious plant, as well as F. aspera, Roxburgh Fig (F. auriculata), Mistletoe Fig (F. deltoidea), F. pseudopalma, Creeping Fig (F. pumila) and related species.

The hermaphrodite Common Figs are called "inedible figs" or caprifigs; in traditional culture in the Mediterranean region they were considered food for goats (Capra aegagrus). In the female fig trees, the male flower parts fail to develop; they produce the "edible figs". Fig wasps grow in Common Fig caprifigs but not in the female syconiums because the female flower is too long for the wasp to successfully lay her eggs in them. Nonetheless, the wasp pollinates the flower with pollen from the caprifig it grew up in. When the wasp dies, it is broken down by enzymes (Ficain) inside the fig. Fig wasps are not known to transmit any diseases harmful to humans.

When a caprifig ripens, another caprifig must be ready to be pollinated. In temperate climes, wasps hibernate in figs, and there are distinct crops. Common Fig caprifigs have three crops per year; edible figs have two. The first (breva) produces small fruits called olynth. Some parthenocarpic cultivars of Common Figs do not require pollination at all, and will produce a crop of figs (albeit sterile) in the absence of caprifigs or fig wasps.

There is typically only one species of wasp capable of fertilizing the flowers of each species of fig, and therefore plantings of fig species outside of their native range results in effectively sterile individuals. For example, in Hawaii, some 60 species of figs have been introduced, but only four of the wasps that fertilize them have been introduced, so only four species of figs produce viable seeds there. This is an example of mutualism, in which each organism (fig plant and fig wasp) benefit each other, in this case reproductively.

The intimate association between fig species and their wasp pollinators, along with the high incidence of a one-to-one plant-pollinator ratio have long led scientists to believe that figs and wasps are a clear example of coevolution. Morphological and reproductive behavior evidence, such as the correspondence between fig and wasp larvae maturation rates, have been cited as support for this hypothesis for many years. Additionally, recent genetic and molecular dating analyses have shown a very close correspondence in the character evolution and speciation phylogenies of these two clades.

Ficus aspera

* Ficus aspera var. parcelli

Ficus aurea — Florida Strangler Fig

Ficus auriculata — Roxburgh Fig

Ficus barbata — Bearded Fig

Ficus battieri

Ficus beddomei — Thavital

Ficus benghalensis — Indian Banyan, Bengal Fig, East Indian Fig, borh (Pakistan), vad/vat/wad, nyagrodha, "indian fig"

Ficus benjamina — Weeping Fig, Benjamin's Fig

Ficus bibracteata

Ficus bizanae

Ficus blepharophylla

Ficus bojeri

Ficus broadwayi

Ficus bubu Warb.

Ficus burtt-davyi Hutch.

Ficus calyptroceras

Ficus capreifolia Del.

Ficus carchiana C.C.Berg

Ficus carica — Common Fig, anjeer (Iran, Pakistan), dumur (Bengali)

Ficus castellviana

Ficus catappifolia

Ficus citrifolia — Short-leaved Fig, Wild Banyantree

Ficus clusiifolia

Ficus congesta

Ficus cordata Thunb.

* Ficus cordata ssp. salicifolia (Vahl) Berg

Ficus coronata — Creek Sandpaper Fig

Ficus costaricana (Liebm.) Miq.

Ficus cotinifolia

Ficus crassipes — Round-leaved Banana Fig

Ficus crassiuscula Standl.

Ficus craterostoma Warb. ex Mildbr. & Burr.

Ficus cristobalensis

Ficus cyclophylla

Ficus dammaropsis — Highland Breadfruit, kapiak (Tok Pisin)

Ficus dendrocida

Ficus deltoidea — Mistletoe Fig

Ficus destruens

Ficus drupacea

Ficus ecuadorensis C.C.Berg

Ficus elastica — Indian Rubber Plant, Rubber Fig, "rubber tree", "rubber plant"

* Ficus elastica cv. 'Decora'

* Ficus elastica var. variegata

Ficus elasticoides Ficus elliotiana Ficus enormis

Ficus erecta — Japanese fig, イヌビワ

Ficus faulkneriana

Ficus fischeri Warb. ex Mildbr. & Burr. (= F. kiloneura Hornby)

Ficus fistulosa

Ficus fraseri — Shiny Sandpaper Fig, White Sandpaper Fig, "figwood", "watery fig"

Ficus fulvo-pilosa Summerh. Ficus gardneriana

Ficus gibbosa

Ficus gigantosyce Dugand

Ficus gilletii Ficus glabra

Ficus glaberrima

Ficus glumosa (Miq.) Del. (=F. sonderi Miq.)

Ficus godeffroyi (endemic to Samoa, known as Mati.)

Ficus gomelleira Ficus greenwoodii Summerh.

Ficus greiffiana

Ficus grenadensis

Ficus grossularioides — White-leaved Fig

Ficus guajavoides Lundell

Ficus guaranitica Ficus guianensis

Ficus hartii

Ficus hebetifolia

Ficus hederacea

Ficus heterophylla

Ficus hirsuta

Ficus hirta Vahl

Ficus hispida

Ficus hispita L.

Ficus ilicina (Sond.) Miq.

Ficus illiberalis

Ficus insipida

* Ficus insipida ssp. insipida

* Ficus insipida ssp. scabra

''Ficus kerkhovenii — Johore Fig

Ficus luschnathiana (Miq.) Miq.

Ficus infectoria — Wavy-leaved Fig, plaksa

Ficus ingens (Miq.) Miq.

Ficus krukovii

Ficus lacor

Ficus lacunata

Ficus laevigata

Ficus laevis

Ficus lapathifolia

Ficus lateriflora

Ficus lauretana

Ficus loxensis C.C.Berg

Ficus lutea Vahl (= F. vogelii, F. nekbudu, F. quibeba Welw. ex Fical.)

Ficus lyrata — Fiddle-leaved Fig

Ficus macbridei Standl.

Ficus maclellandii — Alii Fig or Banana-Leaf Fig

Ficus macrocarpa

Ficus macrophylla — Moreton Bay Fig

Ficus magnifolia

Ficus malacocarpa

Ficus mariae Ficus masonii Horne ex Baker

Ficus mathewsii

Ficus matiziana

Ficus mauritiana

Ficus maxima

Ficus maximoides C.C.Berg

Ficus meizonochlamys

Ficus mexiae

Ficus microcarpa — Chinese Banyan, Malayan Banyan, Curtain Fig, "Indian laurel"

* Ficus microcarpa var. hillii — Hill's Fig

* Ficus microcarpa var. nitida — often considered a subspecies of F. retusa or a distinct species

Ficus microchlamys

Ficus minahasae — longusei (Sulawesi)

Ficus mollior F.Muell. ex Benth.

Ficus monckii

Ficus montana — Oakleaf Fig

Ficus muelleri

Ficus muelleriana

Ficus mutabilis

Ficus mutisii Dugand

Ficus mysorensis

Ficus natalensis Hochst. — mutuba (Luganda)

* Ficus natalensis ssp. leprieurii

* Ficus natalensis ssp. natalensis

Ficus neriifolia

Ficus nervosa

Ficus noronhae

Ficus nota — tibig

Ficus nymphaeifolia

Ficus oapana C.C.Berg

Ficus obliqua — Small-leaved Fig

Ficus obtusifolia

Ficus obtusiuscula (Miq.) Miq.

Ficus opposita — Sweet Sandpaper Fig, Sweet Fig, "figwood", "watery fig"

Ficus organensis (Miq.) Miq.

Ficus padifolia

Ficus pakkensis

Ficus pallida

Ficus palmata

Ficus pandurata

Ficus pantoniana — Climbing Fig

Ficus panurensis

Ficus pertusa

Ficus petiolaris (= F. palmeri)

Ficus pilosa

Ficus piresiana Vázq.Avila & C.C.Berg

Ficus platypoda — Desert Fig, Rock Fig

Ficus pleurocarpa — Banana Fig, Gabi Fig, Karpe Fig

Ficus polita Vahl

* Ficus polita ssp. polita

Ficus prolixa G.Forst. (= F. mariannensis Merr.)

Ficus pseudopalma Blanco

Ficus pulchella

Ficus pumila — Creeping Fig

* Ficus pumila var. awkeotsang

Ficus pyriformis

Ficus racemosa — Cluster Fig, Goolar Fig, udumbara (Sanskrit), umbar (India)

Ficus ramiflora

Ficus religiosa — Sacred Fig, arali, bo, pipal, pippala, pimpal (etc.), pou (Cambodia), Ashvastha

Ficus retusa — Taiwan Fig, Ginseng Fig, "Indian laurel", "Cuban-laurel"

Ficus rieberiana C.C.Berg

Ficus roraimensis

Ficus roxburghii

Ficus rubiginosa — Port Jackson Fig, Little-leaved Fig, Rusty Fig, damun (Sydney Language)

Ficus rumphii Blume — Rumpf's Fig

Ficus salicifolia Vahl (= F. pretoriae Burtt Davy) — Willow-leaved Fig

Ficus salzmanniana

Ficus sansibarica Warb.

Ficus sarmentosa

Ficus saussureana

Ficus scabra G.Forst.

Ficus schippii

Ficus schultesii

Ficus schumacheri

Ficus septica Burm. F. var. septica Moraceae — Hauli Tree in Philippines

Ficus sphenophylla

Ficus stahlii

Ficus stuhlmannii Warb.

Ficus subpuberula

Ficus superba

Ficus superba var. henneana

Ficus sur Forssk. (= F. capensis)

Ficus sycomorus — Sycamore Fig, Fig-mulberry

* Ficus sycomorus ssp. sycomorus

* Ficus sycomorus ssp. gnaphalocarpa (Miq.) C.C. Berg

Ficus tecolutlensis

Ficus tettensis Hutch. (= F. smutsii Verdoorn)

Ficus thonningii

Ficus tinctoria — Dye Fig, Humped Fig

Ficus tobagensis

Ficus tomentella

Ficus tomentosa

Ficus tonduzii Standl.

Ficus tremula Warb.

* Ficus tremula ssp. tremula

Ficus triangularis

Ficus trichopoda Bak. (= F. hippopotami Gerstn.)

Ficus trigona L.f.

Ficus trigonata

Ficus triradiata — Red-stipule Fig

Ficus ulmifolia

Ficus umbellata

Ficus ursina

Ficus variegata Bl.

* Ficus variegata var. chlorocarpa King

Ficus variolosa

Ficus velutina

Ficus verruculosa Warb.

Ficus virens — White Fig, pilkhan, an-borndi (Gun-djeihmi)

* Ficus virens var. sublanceolata White Fig, New South Wales

Ficus virgata

Ficus wassa

Ficus watkinsiana — Watkins' Fig, Nipple Fig, Green-leaved Moreton Bay Fig

Ficus yoponensis Desv.

Gallery

List of famous fig trees

Ashvastha — the world tree of Hinduism, held to be a supernatural F. religiosa

Bodhi tree — a F. religiosa

Charybdis Fig Tree of the Odyssey, presumably a F. carica

Curtain Fig Tree — a F. virens

Ficus Ruminalis — a F. carica

Plaksa — another supernatural fig in Hinduism; usually identified as F. religiosa but probably F. infectoria

Santa Barbara's Moreton Bay Fig Tree — a F. macrophylla

Sri Maha Bodhi — another F. religiosa. Planted in 288 BC, the oldest human-planted tree on record

The Great Banyan — a F. benghalensis, a clonal colony and once the largest organism known

Vidurashwatha — "Vidura's Sacred Fig tree", a village in India named after a famous F. religiosa that until recently stood there

See also

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