Ficus callosa Willd.

കടപ്ലാവ്‌

Family : MORACEAE

Synonym : Ficus cinerascens Thwaites

Common Names : Kadaplavu

Flowering Period : March-April

Distribution : Indo-Malesia

Habitat : Semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forests, also in the plains

Uses : Fruit edible as cooked. The fibrous bark is used for making cloth. The fine wood is often used for making furniture, and is also used for boxes.

Key Characters :

Trees, to 45 m high, bark 10-15 mm thick, surface grey, smooth, lenticellate, fibrous; blaze creamy yellow, latex watery turning yellowish-white. Leaves simple, alternate spiral; stipules 15-30 mm long, broadly ovate, pubescent; petiole 25-70 mm long, stout, grooved above, not articulated, glabrous; lamina 10-30 x 7.5-13 cm, elliptic, broadly oblong or ovate-oblong, base round, obtuse or subcordate, apex obtusely acute, round, margin entire, slightly recurved, coriaceous, glabrous, glossy above and scabrid beneath; 3-5-ribbed from base, lateral nerves 5-12 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae reticulate, prominent. Flowers unisexual; inflorescence a syconia, axillary, solitary subglobose, puberulous-scabrid, peduncle to 1.5 cm long, pubescent-scabrid; basal bracts 3, 1.5-4 mm long, broadly ovate, pubescent, persistent, yellow, when ripe, orifice closed with 3 apical bracts separating to show the interval bracts; internal bristles none, receptacle wall thick; flowers of 4 kinds, numerous, scattered, sessile with 2 stamens or pedicellate with 1 stamens; tepals 4-6, red, lanceolate in sessile flowers, spathulate in pedicellate flowers, free, glabrous; filament short, thin; anthers small, ovate; female flowers and gall flowers similar, sessile or pedicellate; tepals 4-6, red, lanceolate, free, glabrous, ovary superior, obovoid; style elongate; stigma bifid. Syconium greenish-yellow when ripe, 2.5 cm across; basal bracts yellow; achene oblong, slightly keeled.