Brown Woolly Fig

This widespread and variable species has been divided into a number of varieties, two of which are recorded from the Flora area.

Trees, 10-15 m tall. Bark grayish white. Branches without aerial roots; branchlets 5-9 mm in diam., densely yellowish brown woolly. Stipules yellowish brown, lanceolate, 2-3 cm, membranous, with thick hairs. Petiole robust; 2.5-3 cm; leaf blade narrowly elliptic to obovate-elliptic, 15-18 × 5-9 cm, leathery, glabrous or abaxially yellowish brown woolly but glabrescent, adaxially green and glabrous or sparsely shortly pubescent or densely yellowish brown long pubescent but glabrescent, base rounded, ± cordate, or ± auriculate, margin entire or slightly undulate, apex acute; basal lateral veins 2-4, secondary veins 8-11 on each side of midvein, tertiary veins reticulate. Figs axillary on leafy branchlets, paired, reddish orange to red and with scattered white spots, oblong, pillow-shaped, or conic-ellipsoid, 1.5-2.5 × 1-1.5(-2) cm, glabrous or densely covered with brownish yellow long hairs, inside with few or no bristles, apical pore closed by 3 or 4 umbonate bracts, not forming flat disk, subsessile; involucral bracts orbicular to ovate-lanceolate, margin ciliate. Male, gall, and female flowers within same fig. Male flowers: long-pedicellate; calyx lobes 3, broadly ovate; stamen 1; filament short and thick; anther narrowly ellipsoid. Gall flowers: pedicellate; sepals connate, apically 3- or 4-lobed; ovary ± globose. Female flowers: calyx lobes 3, white, broadly lanceolate. Achenes ± globose, tuberculate. Fl. early summer.

Guangdong, Hainan, S Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; NE Australia].

Montane forests, along streams; 100-1500 m.