大果榕

The fruit are edible.

The young branches are usually lopped for fodder. The fruit is also eaten raw or cooked in curries.

Trees, 4-10 m tall, crown elongated and wide, d.b.h. 10-15 cm; dioecious. Bark grayish brown, rough. Branchlets reddish brown, 1-1.5 cm thick, leafless in middle of stem, pubescent. Stipules reddish purple, triangular-ovate, 1.5-2 cm, adaxially shortly pubescent. Leaves alternate; petiole thick, 5-8 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate-cordate, 15-55 × (10-)15-27 cm, thickly papery, abaxially with short spreading pubescence, adaxially glabrous or puberulent on midvein or secondary veins, base cordate to occasionally rounded, margin regularly shallowly dentate, apex obtuse and mucronate; basal lateral veins 4-6, secondary veins 3 or 4 on each side of midvein, abaxially prominent, and adaxially slightly impressed or flat. Figs on specialized leafless branchlets at base of trunk and main branches, reddish brown, pear-shaped, depressed globose, or top-shaped, with 8-12 conspicuous longitudinal ridges, 3-5(-6) cm in diam., white, shortly pubescent when young, glabrescent when mature; peduncle (2-)4-6 cm, thick, pubescent; involucral bracts triangular-ovate; apical bracts in 4 or 5 rows, broadly triangular-ovate, imbricate, rosulate. Male flowers: sessile; calyx lobes 3, transparent, spatulate, thinly membranous; stamens 2; filaments long; anthers ovoid. Gall flowers: calyx lobes 3, apically free, ± covering ovary; style lateral, hairy; stigma enlarged. Female flowers: pedicellate or sessile; calyx lobes 3; ovary ovoid; style lateral, longer than in gall flowers, with hairs. Achenes with adherent liquid. Fl. Aug-Mar, fr. May-Aug.

A large shrub or small, evergreen tree, 3-10 m tall, with wide spreading crown. Trunk short, stout, c. 1.5 m in circumference, bark warty, pale-grey or, young twigs pubescent, hollow. Leaves with 2.5-10 (-15) cm long petiole; lamina broadly ovate to rotundate-ovate,10-30 (-36) cm long, (5-) 8-30 cm broad, 51-costate at the cordate base, entire or shallow toothed, acute to shortly acuminate or subobtuse, glabreacent to glabrous above, softly pubescent beneath, lateral nerves 34 pairs, bulging on both sides, intercostals almost parallel; stipules ovate-lanceolate, 12-25 (-30) mm long, softly hairy. Hypanthodia on 20-30 mm long, stout, pubescent peduncles, borne in bunches on leafless, short branchlets from trunk or main branches (cauliflorous), broadly binate turbinate or depressed globose, longitudinally 8.12-ribbed, 2-2.5 cm across, pubescent, subtended by 3, large, triangular-ovate basal bracts, apical orifice with 5-6 triangular bracts. Male flowers: sessile, ostiolar, in several whorls; large, inflated, imbricate; stamens 2 (-3), filaments much longer than anothers. Gall flowers in lower part of male hypanthodium, with 2-3-lobed calyx. Female flowers: subsessile to pedicellate; sepals united, 2-3-lobed; ovary with subterminal long hairy style, stigma dilated-cylindric. Figs depressed globose broadly turbinate, 3-7.5 cm in diameter, russet or purple-brown and speckled, ribbed, silky hairy.

Himalaya (N. Pakistan to N. Burma), N.E. India, S. China, Indo-China.

S Guangdong, Guangxi, SW Guizhou, Hainan, SW Sichuan, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam].

Distribution: Pakistan (Rawalpindi, Hazara, Kashmir), N.W. to N.E. India, Bhutan, Burma, China and Japan, upto 2000 m along streams and valleys; cultivated elsewhere.

250-1700 m

Fl. & Fr. Per.: August-November.

Forests in moist valleys; 100-1700(-2100) m.