FoI
Laurel Fig
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Laurel Fig
ative Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: Laurel Fig, Chinese Banyan, Malayan Banyan, Indian Laurel, Curtain fig • Hindi: कामरूप Kamarup • Manipuri: খোঙনাঙ Khongnang • Tamil: Kallichchi • Malayalam: Itti, Kallithi, Ittiyal • Telugu: Plaksa • Kannada: Peeladamara, ಪಿನಪಾಲ Pinapala, ಪಿನಿವಾಲ Pinivala • Konkani: Dhavidekgol • Mizo: Ri-hnim
Botanical name: Ficus microcarpa    Family: Moraceae (Mulberry family)
Synonyms: Ficus regnans, Ficus littoralis, Ficus dahlii

Laurel Fig is a banyan native in the range from Sri Lanka to India, southern People's Republic of China, the Malay Archipelago, the Ryukyu Islands, Australia, and New Caledonia. It is an evergreen tree to 15 m or more in height, with a rounded dense crown, smooth gray bark, milky sap, and long, thin, dangling aerial roots. Leaves alternate, simple, leathery, deep glossy green, oval-elliptic to diamond-shaped, to 5 in long, with short pointed, ridged tips. Flowers tiny, unisexual, numerous, hidden within the “fig,” a fleshy, specialized receptacle that develops into a multiple fruit, pale green, turning to yellow or dark red when ripe, stalkless, in pairs at leaf axils, small, to 1 cm in diameter.

Identification credit: Tabish Photographed in Lodhi Garden, Delhi.

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