Ficus scratchleyana
Content
Description
Root-climber.
Branchlets drying brown;
internal hairs absent.
Leaves distichous;
stipules (0.5-)1-2 cm long, densely minutely puberulous to glabrous, caducous.
Stamen 1.
Fruits slightly or not compressed, surrounded by a faint margin or not.
Taxonomy
4The minute brown trichomes on the leafy twigs are sometimes so dense that they form a powdery layer.
3Similar to the related F. gymnorygma, the colour of the tepals varies from whitish to pinkish or to red. The fruits are sometimes (only in large figs) not compressed and not surrounded by a rim.
2The type of F. scratchleyana var. aurantiola (Aet & Idjan 916 from Biak) has slender leafy twigs and small laminas (3-7 by 1.5-3 cm). As some of these leaves are more or less asymmetric, at least at the base, the collection may represent a state transitional to the bathyphyll one.
1The species is rather variable. Most collections have subglobose fig receptacles up to 1.5 cm when dry, but some collections have large (8-10 cm long) pyriform receptacles. The latter collections match the description of F. rhopalosycia by Diels (1935), recognized as a variety of F. scratchleyana by Corner (1960), as they do not differ in the characters of twigs and leaves from the common form with smaller subglobose fig receptacles.