Ficus macrophylla
Ficus macrophylla is a large evergreen banyan tree of the family Moraceae. It is native to eastern Australia, from the Wide Bay–Burnett region in the north to the Illawarra in New South Wales. It can grow to over 750 m in height, and is best known for its imposing buttress roots. The fruit is small, round and greenish, ripening and turning purple at any time of year.
About Ficus macrophylla in brief
Ficus macrophylla is a large evergreen banyan tree of the family Moraceae. It is native to eastern Australia, from the Wide Bay–Burnett region in the north to the Illawarra in New South Wales, as well as Lord Howe Island. Its common name is derived from Moreton Bay in Queensland, Australia. Individuals may reach 60 m in height. The large leathery, dark green leaves are 15–30 cm long. The fruit is small, round and greenish, ripening and turning purple at any time of year. It has an obligate mutualism with fig wasps. Many species of bird, including pigeons, parrots and various passerines, eat the fruit. The species is widely used as a feature tree in public parks and gardens in warmer climates such as California, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Malta, northern New Zealand and Australia. Its aggressive root system renders it unsuitable for all but the largest private gardens. With over 750,000 years of ageing, it is one of the largest angiosa species, Ficus is the largest genera in the Moraceae family, and one of only six figs in the world. It can grow to over 750 m in height, and is best known for its imposing buttress roots. Its seed germination usually takes place in the canopy of a host tree and the seedling lives as an epiphyte until its roots establish contact with the ground.
It then enlarges and strangles its host, eventually becoming a freestanding tree by itself. In the early 19th century, Italian botanist Vincenzo Tineo of the Orto botanico di Palermo in Sicily obtained a plant from a French nursery that grew to a prodigious size. This form was propagated and grown in gardens around Sicily. A later director of the gardens, Antonino Borzì, described it as Ficus magnolioides in 1897. This name was widely used in Europe. In 2005, Dutch botanis Cornelis Bergis completed the treatment of Moraceae for the Flora Malesiana series. In his regenus Urostigma of the Australian Malvanthera, he altered the delimitations of the series within the Malvanthereae, but left this species in this series. He later divided this species into six subgenera; later this classification was later placed in subseries Malvantae, section MalvantAE, section Urostherea, section Malvantherea of the Malesa Malesa. Ficus Macrophylla f. f. columnaris is a hemiepiphyter lacking a distinct main trunk and endemic to Lord Howe island. It was recognised as a subspecies in 1986, but was later split into two. The specific epithet macrophylla is derived from the Ancient Greek makros and phyllon and refers to the size of the leaves.
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This page is based on the article Ficus macrophylla published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
