Moraceae Ficus americana Aublet

| |	© W.D. Hawthorne

Other images of the same specimen :

| 1 | 2 | 3 |

Keywords in this picture :

• Foliage
• Fruit
• Lamina leaf blade
• Vegetative
• Venation
• Leaf parts
• Inflorescence
• Flower & fruit
• Leaf
• Plant parts

Places where this species can be found :

• Grand Etang - GRENADA
• Mount Qua Qua - GRENADA

Species information

Description
Tree to 12m; Leaf 2-8 cm long x 1-4cm; base acute or obtuse, not cordate; apex rounded to almost acute; c 13-15 pairs close laterals, with intermediate veins prominent; stipules c.9mm long; Figs in pairs in leaf axils, not spotted, small (3-7mm diam.)

Interest
Ficus - L name for Ficus carica, the edible fig. Ficus elastica used to be an important source of rubber. Ficus lyrata so names because of the lyre-shaped leaves. There are approximately 1,000 species of figs (genus Ficus), mostly distributed throughout tropical regions of the world, and they all have their own pollinator wasp species that only enters their syconia through a small opening (called an ostiole) to pollinate the female flowers inside. In fact, the classic one-fig/one-wasp partnership has been challenged in an article by D. Molbo et al. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2003 100: 5867-5872). Both Aztecs and Mayans used bark from native strangler figs to make a kind of paper for the original Mexican codices. Thin strips of bark were pounded with a stone until a sheet of paper resulted, a process not unlike the production of papyrus paper by Egyptians. The strangler fig or "amate" is the "arbol nacional" (national tree) of El Salvador.

Specimen information

Collection Date
13/06/2001

Collector
W.D. Hawthorne, S.Cable & D. Jules

Specimen Number
490

Location
Path around Grand Etang Lake.

Notes
Tree 18 m tall with aerial roots and crooked bole. ROOTS: spreading roots along the ground up to 5 m from the bole, aerial roots descending from 3-4 m above the ground, both with huge lenticels. BARK: semi-smooth with numerous fine horizontal ridges. SLASH: fibrous, brittle, pale brown, white latex. LEAVES: US midrib prominant; margin recurved. FIGS: pale green, mature? (RHS colour code: Leaf upper =147B, below=146B)

Coordinates
Latitude: 12.060000 N   Longitude: 61.420000 W   Altitude: 600