Ficus amplissima Smith - MORACEAE

Synonym : Ficus tsiela Roxb. ex Buch.-Ham.

Vernacular names : Malayalam: Chela; KoyaliKannada: Bilibasuri; Bilibasari mara

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literatures

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Medium sized trees, often epiphytic, to 20 m tall with aerial roots.
Trunk & Bark : Bark greenish-grey, smooth; blaze yellow;.
Branches and branchlets : Branchlets terete, glabrescent or puberulous, with annular scars.
Exudates : Latex white, profuse.
Leaves : Leaves simple, alternate, spiral; stipules 2.5 cm long, lanceolate, caducous, leaving annular scar; petiole 1.5-5 cm long, canaliculate, glabrous; lamina 5-14 x 2.5-9 cm, broadly ovate or ovate - oblong, apex acuminate with blunt tip or acute, base acute-cuneate or rounded, margin entire, thick, cartilaginous, glabrous, coriaceous; midrib raised above; secondary_nerves 8-10 pairs, slender; tertiary_nerves reticulate, obscure.
Inflorescence / Flower : Inflorescence syconia, monoecious, axillary, subsessile, depressed globose; flowers unisexual occurs with in the inner wall of syconia.
Fruit and Seed : Syconium red or purple when ripe; achenes smooth.

Ecology :

Subcanopy trees in disturbed evergreen forests up to 1000.

Distribution :

Peninsular India, Sri Lanka and Maldives; in the Western_Ghats- South, Central and Maharashtra Sahyadris.

Literatures :

Rees, Cyclop. 14: n.1. 1810; Gamble, Fl. Madras 3: 1362.1998 (re.ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 438. 2004; Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 1: 114.1984; Cook, Fl. Bombay 2: 650. 1902; Almeida, Fl. Maharashtra 4b:362.2003.

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