Ficus crassipes F.M.Bailey

Bailey, F.M. (1889) Report on New Plants, Preliminary to General Report on Botanical Results on Mestons Expedition to the Bellenden-Ker Range : 2. Type: Scrubs, Harveys Creek, Russell River, F. M. Bailey & E. Meston s.n.; holo: BRI.

Fig; Fig, Banana; Fig, Round Leaf Banana; Figwood; Banana Fig; Round Leaf Banana Fig; Round-leaf Banana Fig

A strangling fig.

Leaf blades thick and leathery, about 10-17 x 7-13 cm. Leafy twigs stout, 1 cm or more diam., clothed in sparse, erect, grey hairs. Stipules about 4.5-12 cm long, densely clothed in pale grey almost prostrate hairs. Petioles and twigs produce a milky exudate.

Tepals glabrous. Male flowers dispersed among the fruitlets in the ripe fig. Anthers reniform. Bracts at the base of the fig, three. No lateral bracts on the outside of the fig body.

Figs on a short but very thick (up to 15 mm diam.) peduncle, figs ellipsoid, about 40-70 x 13-30 mm, apex beaked (beak about 4-7 mm long). Orifice ending in a triradiate slit and closed within the body of the fig by inflexed, but not interlocking, internal bracts. Seeds about 4 x 2 mm. Embryo about 2 mm long, cotyledons rolled. Radicle straight, about 1 x 0.5 mm.

Cotyledons almost orbicular, about 4-7 mm diam., base truncate or cordate. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade lanceolate to cordate, apex acute, margin crenate on the upper 2/3 of the leaf blade, glabrous on the upper surface; petioles glabrous, about 2/3 the length of the leaf blade; petioles produce a milky exudate. Stipules narrowly triangular, sheathing the terminal bud, glabrous. Seed germination time 12 to 19 days.

Endemic to NEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 1000 m. Usually grows in well developed upland and mountain rain forests. Sometimes found in lowland rain forest.

Fallen fruit eaten by Cassowaries and Musky Rat-kangaroos. Cooper & Cooper (1994).