Species
Ficus pumila
Etymology
Ficus: The Latin name for fig tree, possibly derived from the Hebrew word fag
pumila: small
Common Name(s)
creeping fig
Family
Moraceae
Flora Category
Vascular - Exotic
Structural Class
Dicotyledonous Trees & Shrubs
Habitat
Terrestrial. Moderate to full sun. Vicinity of old or abandoned gardens, climbing up buildings, walls, telegraph poles.
Features
Evergreen, monoecious, scandent shrub becoming +/- erect at flowering. Young stems moderately to densely hairy, becoming glabrous. Leaves glabrous above, finely hairy below when young but becoming +/- glabrous, not lobed, entire, ovate to elliptic, cordate and often asymmetric at base, obtuse to acute, 1.5-3-(4) cm long on young scandent shoots, up to 12 cm long on the more erect flowering shoots; veins very prominently raised below; petiole< blade; stipules 2 per node, densely hairy, triangular, caducous. Inflorescence hairy, pyriform to subglobose, green, shortly pedunculate. Syncarp purplish pink, 2-8 cm long; achenes not seen. (Webb et al. 1988).
Flower Colours
Green
Year Naturalised
1981
Origin
Japan, China
Reason For Introduction
Ornamental
Life Cycle Comments
Perennial. Can't set seed but climbs and adheres to paintwork etc, resulting in damage to walls [not seen as a problem yet (Ewen Cameron 1996)]
This page last updated on 4 Feb 2017