Sycamore Fig
Ficus sycomorus · Moraceae · 돌무화과
How to spot it
Identified by yellow-cream-brown bark, rounded leaves with a heart-shaped base that feel rough, and figs borne in bunches on the trunk and large branches.
Look
- Leaves
- Broadly obovate to elliptic leaves, nearly heart-shaped at the base and rounded at the tip, 2.5 to 13 (up to 21) cm long and 2 to 10 (up to 16) cm wide.
- Flowers
- Figs grow in dense clusters in the leaf axils or on the main branches and trunk (cauliflory).
- Fruit
- Figs are globose to obovate, up to 3.5 x 5 cm, turning yellow-red to red-purple when ripe.
- Bark
- Bark of young stems is pale green with a soft powdery coating; older stems are gray-green and relatively smooth.
Where it grows
- Native to
- Widely native in more than 30 sub-Saharan African countries, including Angola, Botswana and Cameroon.
- Ecology
- A savanna tree common where the water table is high, often growing beside rivers, wetlands and pools.