Ficus lawesii
Content
Description
Tree up to 35 m tall, hemi-epiphytic or (secondarily?) terrestrial, sometimes a climber.
internal hairs absent.
Leaves spirally arranged;
stipules (0.5-)1-2(-3) cm long, glabrous, caducous.
Ovary partly (dark) red.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Borneo present (Kalimantan present, Sarawak present); India present; Maluku (Maluku present); New Guinea present ‒ present; Philippines (Philippines present), Halmahera present, Kutai present, Luzon present, Mindanao present
India; in Malesia: Philippines (Luzon, Mindanao), Borneo (Sarawak; Kalimantan: Kutai), Moluccas (Halmahera), New Guinea; common in New Guinea, less common or rare elsewhere.
Taxonomy
2Two collections from New Guinea (including the type F. lawesii) with ‘galled’ pistillate flowers deviate by having the figs solitary, the figs (sub)sessile and stipitate, and the ostiole with 3 or 4 bracts visible. They match in their vegetative features the normal specimens included.
1This species is closely related to F. glaberrima, from which it differs in the more numerous lateral veins, the presence of up to four figs in the same leaf axil, the persistent basal bracts, and the two (visible) upper ostiolar bracts. In material from the Philippines, the figs are sometimes 0.8-1 cm diam. when dry and the figs possibly occur less often in groups of four in the leaf axils.
3Ficus travancorica King is based on material from Peninsular India, F. lawesii and the two names based on material from the Philippines were included in F. glaberrima Blume var. bracteata Corner (Gard. Bull. Singapore 17 (1960) 388). It is somewhat doubtful whether the Malesian material currently under F. lawesii and the material from India as well as some similar collections from Thailand belong to the same species.