30 



UROSTIG 



28 



Ficus altissima, Bl.BiJd. 444; Miq. in Ann. Mus. LugcL Bat ui 285 



Kurt For. Flora. Brit Bum. ii. 442.- UrosL altissunum, Miq. m Zoll. Syst 



> 



Verz. 90 & 96; Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. i. pt. 2. 349. -F. laccifera, Roxb 



Fl. Ind. iii. 545; Wight Ic. 656] Beddome FL Sylv. ii. 2*3; Brandis 

 For. Flora 4 1 8 ; Kurz For. Flora Brit. Burm. ii. 441.— UrosL aliimmum, 

 Miq Lond. Journ. Bot. vi. 575 ; Miq. in Ann. Mus. Lu-d. B : ,t. iii. 285; 

 Thwaites Enum. PL Cey. 265 ; Wall. Cat. 4559F, 4560 (in part). 



A lar-e spreading tree, with few aerial roots; the young parts pubera 1 < his, ultimately all 



labrous except the external surface of the stipules; leaves coriaceous, pctn.Ute, broadly ovate 



elliptic, rare 



J[j ovate-lanceolate, shortly and obtusely cuspidate, edges entire, base rounded, 

 owed occasionally slightly unequal, but never cordate, 3- to 5-nerved ; lateral 



narroweu, 



primary nerves 5 or 6 pairs, distinct ; length 4 to 7 in. ; petioles >7» to 15 in. long ; stipules 



very 



lanceolate, greyish pubescent outside, glabrous inside, from I in. to 1*7 



long; receptacles sessile, enveloped when young in early deciduous calyptriform bracts 



pairs, axillary, ovoid, smooth, when ripe lake-red or yellowish, '75 in. to 1 in. long; basal 

 bracts 3 short, broad, blunt, united at the base, pubescent or puberulous ; male flowers scattered 

 all over the interior of the receptacles, pedicillate, the perianth of 4 pieces ; anther sub-sossile ; 

 ill and fertile female flowers with a similar gamophyllous deeply 4-cleft perianth ; the ovary 





of the °-all flower smooth, that of the fertile female minutely tuberculate; the >t lo in both 

 elongate; gall flowers sometimes pedicillate ; fertile females usually sessile. 



In the forests at the base of the Himalaya, from Nepal to Bhutan ; on tin pi: ins and lower 

 slopes of the hills in Assam, Chittagong, and Burmah; in Ceylon; and the Malayan Peninsula 



and Archipelago. 



After much consideration and an examination of the material in the herbaria of Kew, 

 Leiden, Utrecht, and Calcutta, I cannot see my way to keeping F. lacciftrt, \lt>xb. specifically 

 distinct from altissima, Bl. In my opinion Roxburgh's species is mer lv a Northern form of 

 altissima. It is best distinguished from typical altissima by its larger, thinner leaves. Kurz in 

 For. Mora Brit. Burm. ii. 441) keeps up both species, but he describ s them in aim st identical 

 terms. The diagnostic mark on which (in his clavis of the species) he reli B to distinguish 



altissima is that its stipules and bracts (by bracts Kurz means the calyptrifoim involurr of the 



young receptacles) are both puberulous, the latter falling off early, whereas in /' eifera the 



bracts are glabrous and persistent and the stipules are glabrous. But in his detailed descrip 



tion he says of altissima—" bracts very caducous ;" and of laccifera he Bays— " bracts very deci 



duous." Miquel does not describe laccifera, Roxb. anywhere, but to his classification of the 



species of Ficus (Ann. Mus. Lugd. Bat. iii. 285 et seq.) he puts altissima and lace fera into 

 different sections of his sub-genus Urostigma. The materials of each on which he worked in 

 the herbaria at Leiden and Utrecht are scanty, and the sheets there nam. 1 laccijera are not 

 characteristic specimens of Roxburgh's plant. There is much confu ion in the sheets issued 

 by Walhch as F. Indica (No. 4560 of his Cat.), many of which belong to thi species. In the 

 Calcutta set sheets 4560 C and I unmistakeably, and H doubtfully, belong to this. 

 lo add to the confusion, the Wallichian specimens under No. 4560 in the Linna an Society 





and those a Kew and in M. de Candolle's herbarium, do not in all cases agree. I. is then to 

 ot yeryhttle use to quote the letters. But in all four herbam the specmuns named in 

 Hamdton s handwntms F. Peguemu and F. varinga are true laccifera, Roxb. Zoll.'s No. 2610 



is typical F. altissim-a. HI J ' 





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