Ficus callosa Willd. - MORACEAE

Vernacular names : Tamil: KoialMalayalam: Kadaplavu; Kadapilavu; KallaluKannada: Neeruvate; Thagadu golimara

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literatures

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Buttressed trees, up to 25 m tall.
Trunk & Bark : Bark grey, smooth, lenticellate; blaze yellowish.
Branches and branchlets : Branchlets stout, terete, lenticellate, glabrous.
Exudates : Latex white, profuse.
Leaves : Leaves simple, alternate, spiral; stipules to 3 cm long, lanceolate, caducous leaving annular scar; petiole 2-7 cm long, canaliculate, glabrous; lamina 10-20 (-30) x 5-11(-15) cm, (-50 x 23 cm in saplings), elliptic to broadly elliptic, sometimes ovate, apex acute to obtuse or slightly acuminate, base acute to rounded or subcordate, margin entire and revolute, coriaceous, glabrous above, scabrous and slightly pubescent beneath, drying greyish green; midrib raised above; secondary_nerves 7-15 pairs, slightly raised above, irregularly looping near margin; tertiary_nerves reticulo-percurrent.
Inflorescence / Flower : Inflorescence syconia, axillary, solitary, subglobose - obovoid, to 3 cm across, scabrid; peduncle to 1.5 cm long; flowers unisexual.
Fruit and Seed : Syconium, greenish-yellow when ripe, 3 cm across; achene oblong.

Ecology :

Canopy trees in evergreen to semi-evergreen , sometimes in secondary forest up to 1200 m.

Distribution :

Indomalaysia; in the Western_Ghats- South, Central and Maharashtra Sahyadris.

Literatures :

Mem. Acad. Roy. Soc. Hist. (Berlin) 102. 1798; Gamble, Fl. Madras 3: 1364.1998 (re.ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 438. 2004; Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 1: 115.1984; Cook, Fl. Bombay 2: 651. 1902; Almeida, Fl. Maharashtra 4b:365. 2003.

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