Ficus
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Authority
Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
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Family
Moraceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Trees or shrubs, free-standing, climbers, or stranglers (hemiepiphytes), producing copious milky sap. Leaves alternate, simple lobed, usually long-petiolate; stipules deciduous, contorted into a cone-shaped hood that protects the apical meristem, often brightiy colored. Rowers minute, borne in the interior of globose, axillary inflorescences formed by an enlarged receptacle (syconium); calyx reduced, membranous; stamens 2; ovary unilocular with an apical ovule. Fruit a syconium, formed by a globose receptacle containing numerous minute achenes, the apex containing an aperture or operculum.
Distribution and Ecology - A genus of about 800 species, with tropical and subtropical distribution.