Ficus Tourn. ex L.

Overview

Ficus belongs to the family Moraceae. Flora of China counts about 1000 species, mainly in the tropics and subtropics and especially diverse in South-East Asia, 99 of them in China (16 endemic, two introduced); the species WCVP accepts are listed below. Flora of China adds that many are grown as ornamentals in the tropics and subtropics and as houseplants elsewhere, and a few, notably the common fig, F. carica, as fruit trees.

The common plant-shop species: the rubber plant, F. elastica, native from western Yunnan to India, Malaysia and Indonesia, is grown as a houseplant around the world and was formerly a source of rubber in China (Flora of China); the fiddle-leaf fig, F. lyrata, is a hemiepiphytic tree of western and west-central tropical Africa (Kew); the weeping fig, F. benjamina, is native to tropical and subtropical Asia and northern Australia (Kew); and the Chinese banyan, F. microcarpa, commonly planted as a shade tree in southern China, grows rust-coloured aerial roots on older branches (Flora of China).

Classification and characters

WCVP cites Linnaeus’s Species Plantarum (1753) as the place of publication and sinks more than twenty generic names, such as Covellia and Galoglychia, as synonyms.

Flora of China describes trees, shrubs, climbers, stranglers or woody epiphytes, evergreen or deciduous, with latex. The stipules are often joined and enclose the terminal bud, leaving a ring-like scar when they fall, and the leaves usually bear waxy glands at the base beneath. The inflorescence is a fig (syconium): many minute flowers lining the inside of a hollow receptacle that opens to the outside only through a pore at the top. Ficus is immediately recognisable by this “fig”.

A fig holds male, gall and female flowers; gall flowers are sterile females, usually occupied by a fig wasp. Flora of China explains that fig wasps (Hymenoptera, Agaonidae) are very specialised symbiotic pollinators whose life cycles are tied to the flowering and fruiting of the figs; wasp taxonomy closely parallels that of Ficus, most wasp genera being restricted to particular subgenera, sections or subsections. The larvae feed on short-styled female flowers or, in the male figs of dioecious species, on the gall flowers.

In the rubber plant the stipules are dark red and about 10 cm long, wrapping each new leaf, and the thickly leathery blades are 8–30 cm long (Flora of China).

Distribution

WCVP records the genus as native to 196 TDWG botanical regions and introduced in 52 more.

Introduced

Accepted species

WCVP accepts 893 species; names with × are natural hybrids. The count changes with revisions; checked 2026-10-28.

Historic plates

Plates in date order; the printed names are kept as they appear, current names are on the species pages and the topic page.

• 

  Ficus urophylla

  The Botanical Cabinet · 1697 · 1831
  George Loddiges
• 

  Figuier de Brunswick

  La Belgique horticole · 1852
  C. Severeyns
• 

  Ficus elastica

  Tuinbouw-flora van Nederland en zijne overzeesche bezittingen · 8 · 1855
  
• 

  Ficus elastica

  Favourite Flowers of Garden and Greenhouse · Pl. 234 · 1897
  

Pet safety

The ASPCA lists Ficus species (common names include weeping fig and Indian rubber plant) as toxic to dogs, cats and horses; the toxic principles are the proteolytic enzyme ficin and the psoralen ficusin. If a pet may have eaten it, the ASPCA advises calling its poison line or a local vet at once.

Further reading

• Reference library

References

1. WCVP · World Checklist of Vascular Plants (via ChecklistBank dataset 2232) · accessed 2026-10-28
2. Flora of China vol. 5 · Ficus
3. Kew (POWO data on the ColPlanta site) · Ficus lyrata native range and life form
4. Kew (POWO data on the ColPlanta site) · Ficus benjamina native range
5. Flora of China vol. 5 · Ficus elastica
6. Flora of China vol. 5 · Ficus microcarpa
7. ASPCA Animal Poison Control · Weeping Fig (Ficus sp.)