HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



GENUS FICUS LINNAEUS. 



Leaves alternate, thick and leathery, persistent or deciduous, mostly pinnately 

 veined; stipules enveloping the young leaves and deciduous; buds naked. 

 Flowers unisexual, monoecious (or rarely dioecious) and borne on the inside of 

 hollow receptacles situated in the axils of the leaves or leaf-scars; the staminate 

 and pistillate flowers borne on the same or different receptacles ; staminate fls. 

 subsessile ; sepals 2-6 or wanting ; stamen I with short erect filament and 2-celled 

 innate anther longitudinally dehiscent ; pistillate fls. pedicellate, the pedicels 

 becoming succulent in the fruit ; calyx-lobes narrower than in the pistillate fls. ; 

 ovary sessile, I -celled, with lateral elongated style and usually 2-lobed stigma; 

 ovule solitary, anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, with thin, mucilaginous flesh and 

 hard nutlet, mostly inclosed in the enlarged succulent concave receptacle closed 

 at the apex. 



A very large genus of about 600 species of trees, shrubs and woody 

 climbers, containing a milky juice, and are of tropical distribution, 

 mainly in the Orient and on the islands in the Pacific. The name, 

 Ficus, is the ancient Latin name of the fig. 



301. FICUS AUREA NUTT. 



GOLDEN FIG. WILD RUBBER-TREE. STRANGLE-TREE. 



/ 



Ger., Wilder Feigenbaum. Fr., Figuier dore. Sp., Metapolo. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves thick, leathery and persistent, oblong to oval, 

 2-5 in. long, acute or abruptly pointed and acute, obtuse or narrowly rounded at 

 base, entire, smooth and lustrous with broad pale midribs above, paler yellow 

 green beneath, the lateral veins arcuate and uniting near the margin ; petioles 

 stout, l /2 to i in. long; stipules reddish, enveloping the young leaves at first and 

 falling early. Flozvers reddish purple, both sessile and pedicellate in the sub- 

 globuse receptacles which are subsessile, solitary or in pairs in the axils of 

 leaves or leaf-scars. Fruit sessile or subsessile, about l /s in. in diameter, yellow 

 or reddish at maturity and containing light brown nutlets. 



The specific name, aurea, alludes to the golden color of the fruit. 



A strange tree .which lives, or at least begins life, at the expense of 

 other trees. It is not parasitic in the sense that the mistletoe is, but is 

 rather an assassin among trees. Its seed finds lodgment, probably 

 chiefly through the agency of birds, in a crevice in the bark, a crotch or 

 decayed spot in some tree and soon germinates. The stem and leaves 

 of the infant tree spring upward and strong cord-like roots drop down- 

 ward to the soil beneath. Once established additional roots are sent 

 out, amalgamating with each other where they cross and eventually 

 forming a sort of net-work about and more or less enveloping the 



