Weeping Fig

Ficus benjamina is commonly cultivated as a houseplant. The name probably refers to the supposed relation of the plant to the source of a resin or benzoin procured from the Orient in antiquity.

Trees , evergreen, to 10 m. Roots adventitious, occasionally hanging. Bark gray, smooth. Branchlets brown, glabrous. Leaves: stipules 0.8-1.2 cm; petiole 0.5-2(-3) cm. Leaf blade oblong, elliptic, lanceolate, or ovate, 4-6(-11) × 1.5-6 cm, nearly leathery, base rounded or cuneate, margins entire, apex acuminate or cuspidate; surfaces abaxially and adaxially glabrous; basal veins 1(-2) pairs, short; lateral veins (6-)12(-14) pairs, regularly spaced, uniform; secondary veins prominent. Syconia solitary or paired, sessile or subsessile, orange, yellow, or dark red, nearly globose, 8-12 × 7-10 mm, glabrous; subtending bracts 2-3, crescent-shaped, 0.5-1.5 mm, glabrous; ostiole closed by 3 small, flat, apical bracts 1.5-2 mm wide, umbonate.

Trees, to 20 m tall, crown wide, d.b.h. 30-50 cm. Bark gray to gray-white, smooth. Main branches producing aerial roots which can develop into new trunks; branchlets gray-white, pendulous, glabrous. Stipules caducous, lanceolate, 0.6-1.5 cm, membranous, glabrous. Petiole 1-2 cm, adaxially sulcate; leaf blade ovate to broadly elliptic, 4-8(-14) × 2-4(-8) cm, ± lea-thery, glabrous, base rounded to cuneate, margin entire, apex shortly acuminate; secondary veins 8-10 on each side of midvein, parallel, anastomosing near margin, indistinct from tertiary veins. Figs axillary on leafy branchlets, paired or solitary, purple, red, or yellow [or red with white dots] when mature, globose to depressed globose or sometimes pear-shaped, 0.8-2 cm in diam., glabrous or pubescent, base attenuate into stalk, sessile; involucral bracts inconspicuous, triangular-ovate, glabrous, persistent. Male, gall, and female flowers within same fig. Male flowers: few, shortly pedicellate; calyx lobes (3 or)4, broadly ovate; stamen 1; filament rather long. Gall flowers: many; calyx lobes (3 or)4 or 5, narrowly spatulate; ovary ovoid, smooth; style ± lateral, short. Female flowers: sessile; calyx lobes 3, shortly spatulate; style ± lateral, short; stigma enlarged. Achenes ovoid-reniform, shorter than persistent style. Fl. Aug-Nov.

A large evergreen shrub or tree, up to 8 m or more tall, with nearly 10 m wide spreading crown and drooping shoots, aerial roots absent or very Bark light-grey, smooth, young twigs slender, brownish, glabrous. Leaves with 10-25 mm long petiole; lamina ovate-elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, (3-) 5-12 cm long, 2-6 cm wide, narrow to wide cuneate at the base, cuspidate at the apex, lateral naves numerous, close and nearly parallel, intercostals present, cystoliths present on both sides; stipules paired, lanceolate, 8-10 (-12) mm long, acute, glabrous. Hypanthodia sessile, in axillary pairs globose-ovoid, glabrous green, c. 1.5 cm in diam., subtended by 2-3 crescentric, often unequal sized basal bracts, apical orifice depressed, closed by 3 minute bracts; internal bristles absent. Male flowers: dispersed, Pedicellate, sepals. free; stamen solitary, slightly exserted. Female flowers: numerous, sessile; sepals 3-4, ± spathulate; ovary ovoid with lateral style. Figs orange-red, 2-2.5 cm in diameter, glabrous.

introduced; Fla.; West Indies (Lesser Antilles); native to Asia.

SW Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, S Taiwan, Yunnan [Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam; N Australia, Pacific Islands].

Distribution: Nepal , N. India, Bangla Desh, Burma, S. China, Malaysia to the Solomon Islands and N. tropical Australia; introduced and cultivated in Pakistan, Ceylon, U.S.A. and elsewhere.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: October-Junuary.

Flowering all year.

Disturbed thickets and hammocks; 0-10m.

Moist mixed forests, near villages; 400-800 m.

Urostigma benjamina (Linnaeus) Miquel