Ficus carica
Common names
fig
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Detailed description
Deciduous, dioecious shrub or small tree up to 10 m high. Young stems +/- glabrous to moderately hairy, becoming glabrous. Leaves sparsely to moderately hairy above, often densely hipsid below, usually deeply palmately 3-7 lobed and irregularly serrate or crenate, broadly ovate, obtuse to cordate and symmetric at base, c. 10-25 cm long; veins usually not prominently raised; petiole < blade; stipules 2 per node, glabrous, oblong, caducous. Inflorescence sparsely hairy, pyriform, green, shortly pedunculate. Syncarp green to purplish, 5-8 cm long; achenes irregularly ovoid to subglobose, c. 2mm long. (Webb et al 1988).
Habitat
Terrestrial. waste places, scrubland.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Ecology
Flowering
December, January, February
Year naturalised
1870
Origin
S. Europe, W. Asia
Reason for introduction
Ornamental and horticultural
Life cycle and dispersal
Perennial. Spreads vegetatively, doesn’t set seed in New Zealand. F. carica is cultivated for its edible fruits, spread is largely by humans.
Other information
Etymology
ficus: The Latin name for fig tree, possibly derived from the Hebrew word fag
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
FICCAR