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Useful Tropical Plants

Ficus cordata

Thunb.

Moraceae

+ Synonyms

Ficus ambigua Forssk.

Ficus eucalyptoides Batt. & Trab.

Ficus indica Forssk.

Ficus lecardii Warb.

Ficus leccardioides Warb.

Ficus pretoriae Burtt Davy

Ficus rupium Dinter

Ficus salicifolia Vahl

Ficus taab Forssk

Ficus teloukat Batt. & Trab.

Ficus tristis Kunth & Bouché

Ficus welwitschii Warb.

Urostigma cordatum (Thunb.) Gasp.

Urostigma salicifolium (Vahl) Miq.

Urostigma thunbergii Miq.

Common Name:

Ficus cordata
Plant growing in native habitat in Namibia
Photograph by: JonRichfield
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Ficus cordata Ficus cordata Ficus cordata Ficus cordata

General Information

Ficus cordata is a shrub growing 2 - 5 metres tall or becoming a graceful, sometimes drooping tree with a dense, spreading crown; it usually grows 8 - 15 metres tall but in some parts of its range can reach 35 metres. The often tortuous bole can be up to 100cm in diameter[
299
Title
Protabase - Plant Resources of Tropical Africa.
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.prota.org
Publisher
 
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
An excellent on-line database with detailed information on over 3,200 species of useful plants of Africa.
,
308
Title
Flora Zambesiaca
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://apps.kew.org/efloras/fz/intro.html
Publisher
 
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
An excellent online flora of plants from the Zambezi River basin. It lists a number of the plant uses as well as the habitats and botanical descriptions of the plants.
,
328
Title
African Flowering Plants Database
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/africa/recherche.php
Publisher
Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques.
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
Contains information on over 150,000 plant names (including synonyms) giving a description and habitat, plus a distribution map.
].
The tree is harvested from the wild as a source of tannins. It is often grown as an ornamental[
299
Title
Protabase - Plant Resources of Tropical Africa.
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.prota.org
Publisher
 
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
An excellent on-line database with detailed information on over 3,200 species of useful plants of Africa.
].

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

308
Title
Flora Zambesiaca
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://apps.kew.org/efloras/fz/intro.html
Publisher
 
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
An excellent online flora of plants from the Zambezi River basin. It lists a number of the plant uses as well as the habitats and botanical descriptions of the plants.

Range

Africa - almost throughout the continent and into the Arabian Peninsula, avoiding the regions of higher rainfall.

Habitat

Rocky hills and hill sides; lateritic pans; sandstone, granite, limestone, gneiss; riparian (rocky wadi sides, choked with sand, and wadi beds); wooded- and tall grass savannah; often growing directly from crevices of bare rock[
328
Title
African Flowering Plants Database
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/africa/recherche.php
Publisher
Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques.
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
Contains information on over 150,000 plant names (including synonyms) giving a description and habitat, plus a distribution map.
].

Properties

Other Uses Rating *  *
HabitTree
Height15.00 m
PollinatorsWasps
Cultivation StatusOrnamental, Wild

Cultivation Details

Found throughout the subarid to moist regions of Africa, from the subtropical to the tropical zones, but avoiding those areas with the highest rainfall[
328
Title
African Flowering Plants Database
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/africa/recherche.php
Publisher
Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques.
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
Contains information on over 150,000 plant names (including synonyms) giving a description and habitat, plus a distribution map.
].

Fig trees have a unique form of fertilization, each species relying on a single, highly specialized species of wasp that is itself totaly dependant upon that fig species in order to breed. The trees produce three types of flower; male, a long-styled female and a short-styled female flower, often called the gall flower. All three types of flower are contained within the structure we usually think of as the fruit.
The female fig wasp enters a fig and lays its eggs on the short styled female flowers while pollinating the long styled female flowers. Wingless male fig wasps emerge first, inseminate the emerging females and then bore exit tunnels out of the fig for the winged females. Females emerge, collect pollen from the male flowers and fly off in search of figs whose female flowers are receptive. In order to support a population of its pollinator, individuals of a Ficus spp. must flower asynchronously. A population must exceed a critical minimum size to ensure that at any time of the year at least some plants have overlap of emmission and reception of fig wasps. Without this temporal overlap the short-lived pollinator wasps will go locally extinct[
413
Title
Global Invasive Species Database
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.issg.org/database/welcome/
Publisher
 
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
Very detailed information on almost 400 species (with more being added) of plants that have become weeds in areas outside their native range.
].

Edible Uses

None known

Medicinal

None known

Other Uses

The bark is a source of tannins[
299
Title
Protabase - Plant Resources of Tropical Africa.
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.prota.org
Publisher
 
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
An excellent on-line database with detailed information on over 3,200 species of useful plants of Africa.
].
The bark is used as a dye[
299
Title
Protabase - Plant Resources of Tropical Africa.
Publication
 
Author
 
Website
http://www.prota.org
Publisher
 
Year
0
ISBN
 
Description
An excellent on-line database with detailed information on over 3,200 species of useful plants of Africa.
].

Propagation

Seed -
Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2024-12-05. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Ficus+cordata>

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