Scientific Name : Ficus racemosa L.
Common Name : Cluster Fig, Gular Fig, Country Fig, Udumbara
Chinese Name : 聚果榕, 優曇華
Family : MORACEAE
Local distribution status : Exotic species
| Origins | Southeastern Asia, India and Australia. |
|---|---|
| Meanings of name | The common name ‘Cluster Fig’ and the specific epithet racemosa describes its figs always clustered racemosely on branchlets. The ‘flowers’ of the tree are always confused with its hypanthodia, a type of inflorescence which the true flowers are packed in an enlarged compound receptacle. By reason of the misunderstanding of its reproductive biology, people in the past used to believe that the flower was transient and rare, hence naming the tree as ‘Udumbara’. Udumbara (Sanskrit: उडुम्बर) is a flowering plant depicted in the Lotus Sutra, one of the most representative scriptures of Buddhism; the tree was described as which each of its blossoms occurs after every 3000 years. The tree was also mentioned in the Yiqiejing yinyi published during the Tang Dynasty for appreciating its observable fruit size and cryptic flowering. |
| Application | Compared with other Ficus spp., Cluster Fig is relatively obscure to plant in Hong Kong. The tree, however, grows throughout the forests and exploited areas in India. To the locals, the tree is always harvested for medicinal uses with its leaves, fruits and roots. For example, the roots are used for treating diabetes and dysentery. The bark can relieve urinary and skin diseases. The leaf extracts show excellent anti-inflammatory activity to relieve the syndromes induced by histamine and serotonin. |
| Common Red-stem Fig (F. variegata) and Cluster Fig | Two trees are morphologically identical in tree shape, both characterising the clustered fruits on branchlets. To distinguish the trees, the trunk of Cluster Fig is always covered with flakes, whereas the bark of Common Red-stem Fig is greyish brown and smooth. Different from the leaves of Cluster Fig that are elliptic-obovate, with cuneate to obtuse base, those of Common Red-stem Fig are broadly ovate to ovate-elliptic, with rounded to shallowly cordate base. |
| Growing habit | Evergreen tree or deciduous tree. |
|---|---|
| Height | To 30 m. |
| Root | Buttressed when mature, aerial root absent. |
| Stem | Bark greyish brown, smooth, always with flakes. |
| Leaves | Stipules ovate-lanceolate, pubescent. Simple leaf alternate, covered with white soft pubescence when young. Blade leathery, elliptic-obovate, elliptic, or narrowly elliptic, base cuneate to obtuse, apex acuminate to obtuse, entire, dark green adaxially, pale green abaxially. |
| Flowers | Hypanthodia pyriform, aggregated on short branchlets of old stem. Monecious. |
| Fruits | Syconia, turning reddish orange when mature. |
| Flowering period | unknown |
| Fruiting period | unknown |
Scientific name above is based on Plants of the World Online website :
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:853540-1
Scientific names from other databases :
― Flora of China : Ficus racemosa Linnaeus
― GBIF : Ficus racemosa L.