Ficus altissima

Ficus altissima Blume, Bijdr. 455 1825. (syn: Ficus cartagenensis Dugand; Ficus laccifera Wight ex Roxb. ; Ficus latifolia Oken ; Urostigma altissimum (Bl.) Miq.; Urostigma lacciferum (Wight ex Roxb.) Miq.);

India (Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Deccan Peninsula, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Sikkim, W. Bengal), Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam as per Synopsis of the Genus Ficus L. (Moraceae) in India Lal Babu Chaudhary*, Jana Venkata Sudhakar, Anoop Kumar, Omesh Bajpai, Rinkey Tiwari and G. V. S. Murthy- Taiwania, 57(2): 193-216, 2012;

Ficus altissima, commonly known as the council tree,^[1] is a species of flowering plant, a fig tree in the family Moraceae. It is a large, stately evergreen tree and is native to southeastern Asia.

Ficus altissima is a large, evergreen forest tree with a buttressed trunk and a spreading crown, growing to 30 m (98 ft). The bark is smooth and grey, with small pale brown pustules. The branches are spreading and the twigs are hairy when young. The leaves are alternate, elliptic to ovate, with entire margins and up to 10 by 4 cm (3.9 by 1.6 in). They are supported on short stalks and have sheathing stipules. The flowers are solitary or in pairs and are in the axils of the leaves. They are concealed inside hollow receptacles which grow into orangish-red, many-seeded. 2.5 cm (1 in) figs following pollination.^[2]

Ficus altissima is native to southeastern Asia and many islands in the Pacific. Its range includes the Andaman Islands, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, South China and the Malesia region.^[2] It was first described by the Dutch botanist Carl Ludwig Blume in 1826 from Java. It has become naturalized in some of the southern counties of Florida.^[1]

Ficus altissima is a “strangler fig”, often starting life as an epiphyte, frequently on a palm tree, sending down roots to the ground which in time grow stout enough to support the growing tree independently. By this time the host tree has been overwhelmed and killed. It can also grow as a lithophyte in a crevice in a rock or a man made structure. It is sometimes planted as a shade tree but has a wide root system and is unsuitably large for most urban areas.^[2]^[3]

(From Wikipedia on 24.11.16)