Description

  Indian Rock Fig also known as the brown-woolly fig or Mysore fig, is a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia and Northeast Australia (it has been introduced into the New World tropics, including Puerto Rico). It is a strangler fig; it begins its life cycle as an epiphyte on a larger tree, which it eventually engulfs. Its distinctive features include dense, woolly pubescence, bright yellow to red fleshy fruit, and grayish white bark. It can reach heights of 10–30 meters (33–98 ft). Its fruit are eaten by pigeons, and it is pollinated by Eupristina belgaumensis. It occurs in environments ranging from sea-level beachfront environments to montane forests, up to 1000 m (3281 ft).

Characteristics:

Indian Rock Fig is a tree which is commonly mistaken for Peepal (Ficus religiosa). Leaves are typical peepal like, but with wavy margins. One of the common ways of recognizing Ficus arrnottiana from Ficus religiosa is to examine the color of the leaf-stalk and the veins which are bright Pink to red in colour. The Leaf tips of F. religiosa are tapering, acuminate and long as against the leaf tips of F. arnottiana which are pointed and acuminate but not long. Deciduous independent trees, to 10 m high, aerial roots absent; bark surface grey-brown, smooth, tuberculate-lenticellate; blaze pink; latex milky. Leaves simple, alternate spiral; stipules 3-5 cm long, lateral, reddish-green, glabrous, cauducous, leaving annular scars; petiole 3-10 cm long, slender, red, not articulated, glabrous; lamina 6-20 x 5-13 cm, broadly ovate, base deeply cordate, apex caudate-acuminate, margin entire, slightly undulate, glabrous, coriaceous; 5-7-ribbed from base, lateral nerves 5-8 pairs, pinnate, slender, prominent, intercostae reticulate, prominent. Flowers unisexual; inflorescence a syconia, in axillary pairs or crowded near the apex, sessile or shortly pedunculate, globose, glabrous, orifice plane; bracts 3, 1 x 2-2.5 mm, ovate, thin, eventually cauducous; flowers of 4 kinds; tepals red, more or less gamophyllous, 3-4 lobed, fleshy; male flowers sessile, around the orifice and sparsely scattered in the interior of the syconia; stamens 1, subsessile; anthers 2-celled, ovate-oblong, dehiscence longitudinally; female flowers sessile, sparsely scattered in the interior of syconia, cream, somewhat reddish on stylar side; ovary superior, depressed globose; style filiform; stigma flat gall flowered stalked; neutar flowers few. Synconium yellowish-brown when ripe; 5-7 mm across; achenes smooth.

Medicinal uses:

To treat vata and pitta, skin, diseases, leprosy, pruritus, Vaginopathy, inflammation and diarrhea, scabies, wounds, diabetes, burning sensation etc.