Weeping fig
Ficus benjamina
Weeping fig,Benjamin Tree,Java Fig,Java Tree,Small-leaved Rubber Plant,Tropic Laurel,Waringin,Ficus nitida,Chinese Banyan,Fig,Indian Rubber Plant
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Description
Ficus benjamina is a tree reaching 30 m (98 ft) tall in natural conditions, with gracefully drooping branchlets and glossy leaves 6–13 cm (2–5 in), oval with an acuminate tip. The bark is light gray and smooth. The bark of young branches is brownish. The widely spread, highly branching tree top often covers a diameter of 10 meters. It is a relatively small-leaved fig. The changeable leaves are simple, entire and stalked. The petiole is 1 to 2.5 cm long. The young foliage is light green and slightly wavy, the older leaves are green and smooth; the leaf blade is ovate to ovate-lanceolate with wedge-shaped to broadly rounded base and ends with a short dropper tip. The pale glossy to dull leaf blade is 5 to 12 cm long and 2 to 6 cm wide. Near the leaf margins are yellow crystal cells ("cystolites"). The two membranous, deciduous stipules are not fused, lanceolate and 6 to 12 mm (rarely to 15 mm) long.F. benjamina is monoecious. The inflorescences are spherical to egg-shaped, shiny green, and have a diameter of 1.5 cm. In the inflorescences are three types of flowers: male and fertile and sterile female flowers. The scattered, inflorescences, stalked, male flowers have free sepals and a stamen. Many fertile female flowers are sessile and have three or four sepals and an egg-shaped ovary. The more or less lateral style ends in an enlarged scar. The ripe figs (collective fruit) are orange-red and have a diameter of 2.0 to 2.5 cm.
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Taxonomy
Order
Urticales
Family
Moraceae
Genus
Ficus
Characteristics
Plant Type
Trees, Houseplant, Poisonous, Shrub, Tree
Lifespan
Woody
Flower
Flowers and fruits are enclosed in a fleshy sac that turns from green to orange-red to red and then purplish black. Minute, unisexual, enclosed in fleshy receptacle (fig), entered by apical orifice and pollinated by fig wasps.
Fruit
Flowers and fruits are enclosed in a fleshy sac that turns from green to orange-red to red and then purplish black. A globose to slightly oblong fig, in pairs, green maturing to reddish then purple-black.
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How to Grow
Water
Average
Sunlight
Full Sun, Partial Sun, Dappled Sunlight (Shade through upper canopy all day), Deep shade (Less than 2 hours to no direct sunlight), Full sun (6 or more hours of direct sunlight a day), Partial Shade (Direct sunlight only part of the day, 2-6 hours)