Fig

Ficus carica is known to escape in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, although no specific localities are documented.

Ficus carica was first known from Caria in southwestern Asia. It is cultivated for its edible fruit and becomes established outside of cultivation only sporadically in the United States. It can sometimes be found persisting around old habitations and old orchards.

This species was introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty (618–906 CE) and is grown particularly in Xinjiang for its edible fruit.

Shrubs or small trees , deciduous, to 5 m. Roots not adventitious. Bark grayish, slightly roughened. Branchlets pubescent. Leaves: stipules 1-1.2 cm; petiole 8-20 cm. Leaf blade obovate, nearly orbiculate, or ovate, palmately 3-5-lobed, 15-30 × 15-30 cm, base cordate, margins undulate or irregularly dentate, apex acute to obtuse; surfaces abaxially and adaxially scabrous-pubescent; basal veins 5 pairs; lateral veins irregularly spaced. Syconia solitary, sessile, green, yellow, or red-purple, pyriform, 5-8 cm, pubescent; peduncle ca. 1 cm; subtending bracts ovate, 1-2 mm; ostiole with 3 subtending bracts, umbonate.

Shrubs, 3-10 m tall, many branched. Bark grayish brown, distinctly lenticellate. Branchlets straight, strong. Stipules red, ovate-lanceolate, ca. 1 cm. Leaves alternate; petiole strong, 2-5 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate, usually with 3-5 ovate lobes, 10-20 × 10-20 cm, thickly papery, abaxially densely covered with small cystoliths and short gray pubescence, adaxially scabrous, base ± cordate, margin irregularly toothed; basal lateral veins 2-4, secondary veins 5-7 on each side of midvein. Figs axillary on normal leafy shoots, solitary, purplish red to yellow when mature, pear-shaped, large, 3-5 cm in diam., apical pore concave, sessile; involucral bracts ovate. Male flowers: near apical pore; calyx lobes 4 or 5; stamens (1 or)3(-5). Gall flowers: style lateral, short. Female flowers: calyx lobes 4 or 5; ovary ovoid, smooth; style lateral; stigma 2-branched, linear. Achenes lenslike. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.

A large shrub to small deciduous tree, 5-9 m tall with several spreading branches from a short, rough trunk. Bark smooth, grey or dull white, young twigs glabrous or softly hairy. Leaves with glabrous to tomentose up to 12 cm long grooved petiole; lamina variable in shape and size, broadly ovate to nearly orbicular, (4-) 5-15 (-20) cm long, (3.5-) 5-15 (-18) cm broad, undivided or obscurely palmatifid to mostly palmatipartite, lobes spathulate with entire to apically few-dentate margin, 5-costate at the cordate base, margins undulate-dentate or dentate-crenate, acute to ± obtuse, scabrous above, densely soft hairy beneath especially on nerves, lateral nerves 6-8 (-9) pairs, intercostals ascending-parallel; stipules ovate-lanceolate, 10-12 mm long, hairy to glabrescent Hypanthodia axillary solitary or paired, borne on upto 3 cm long peduncles, pyriform to globose, 1.5-2 cm in diameter, subsessile to sessile, subtended by 3, broadly deltoid basal bracts, apical orifice closed by 4-5, broadly deltoid, ciliate imbricate bracts. Male flowers: sepals usually 4, united, lobes lanceolate; stamens 4, filaments long with oval, exserted anthers. Female flowers: pedicellate, sepals 4, lobes lanceolate-oblong: ovary with lateral style, stigma entire or 2-fid. Figs usually pyriform-obovoid, 2-5 (-8) cm in diameter, glabrous or shortly hispid, yellowish to brownish violet.

introduced; Calif., Fla., Mass., N.C., S.C.; Mexico; West Indies; native to Asia.

Distribution: Cultivated and subspontaneous in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan; Russia, Iran, Middle East, N. Africa and Europe; introduced in cultivation elsewhere.

Flowering spring-summer.

Disturbed sites; 0-300m.

Cultivated. throughout China [native to the Mediterranean region eastward to Afghanistan].