Description

Hairy Fig is a coarsely hairy shrub or small tree. Ovate-lanceshaped stipules are usually 4, and are visible on leafless fruiting branchlets. Oppositely arranged leaves, on 1-4 cm long stalks, are ovate, oblong, or obovate-oblong, 10-25 cm long, 5-10 cm wide, thickly papery, covered with coarse hairs. Leaf base is rounded to wedgeshaped, margin is entire or bluntly toothed, tip is pointed. Figs appear in leaf axil on normal leafy shoots, sometimes on leafless branchlets, solitary or paired, yellow or red when mature, top-shaped, 1.2-3 cm in diameter. Figs are covered with short hairsFlowering: June-July.

Characteristics:

Hairy Fig is a small but well distributed species of tropical Fig tree. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate individuals. It occurs in many parts of Asia and as far south east as Australia. There is a large variety of local common names. Like a number of ficus, the leaves are sandpapery to touch. An unusual feature is the figs which hang on long stems. Shrubs to medium sized trees, up to 10 m tall. Bark brownish, lenticellate; blaze pink. Branchlets terete, with hollow internodes, densely hispid with brown or grey hairs, lenticellate. Leaves: Leaves simple, opposite, decussate; stipules to 2.5 x 1 cm, caducous, leaving annular scar; petiole 1-10 cm long, canaliculate, hispid; lamina 7-35 x3-16 (40 x 18 cm in saplings), elliptic-oblong, narrow ovate, narrow obovate, apex caudate-acuminate, base rounded subcordate or truncate-subcordate, margin entire or dentate sometimes irregularly toothed, scabrid on both surface, hispid beneath; midrib slightly raised above; 3-nerved at base; secondary nerves 4-9 pairs, often branched, ascending; tertiary nerves broadly reticulo-percurrent. Flowers: Inflorescence syconia, clustered on tubercles of main trunk, older branches and sometimes on pendulous leafless. branches; flowers unisexual. Fruit and Seed: Syconium, globose, up to 2.5 cm across.

Medicinal Uses:

Traditionally, different parts of the plant have been used in the treatment of ulcers, psoriasis, anemia, piles jaundice, vitiligo, hemorrhage, diabetes, convulsion, hepatitis, dysentery, biliousness, and as lactagogue and purgative.