Ficus ribes (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Ficus ribes Reinw. ex Blume

Family: Moraceae

Ficus merrillii Elmer, F. serraria Miquel, F. staphylosyce Ridley.

• Indonesia: walen (Sundanese), kopeng (Javanese), ampere (Madurese)
• Malaysia: ara lumut (Peninsular)
• Papua New Guinea: pikus
• Philippines: tabog, tibig (Tagalog).

Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and the Philippines.

In Indonesia the bark and leaves used to be chewed with areca nuts (the endosperm of Areca catechu L.) as a substitute for gambier ( Uncaria gambir (Hunter) Roxb.). An extract from the bark, locally called "gambir utan", used to be applied against malaria, but proved to be ineffective.

A small tree up to 15 m tall; bole up to 30 cm in diameter; outer bark reddish-brown; latex white. Twigs, petioles, lower side of veins, and figs with fine white-brown hairs. Leaves usually subdistichous, occasionally opposite; petiole 2-14 mm long; blade narrowly elliptical to lanceolate or lanceolate-obovate, often asymmetrical, 8-17 cm × 1.5-5 cm (larger in saplings), base cuneate, margin entire to obscurely denticulate, apex acute to acuminate, glabrous to appressed hairy above. Figs mainly on stem and thicker branches, on short leafless twigs set on woody burrs, or becoming panicled racemose in large clusters, or elongated into geocarpic stolons up to 4 m long, with 3 basal bracts, depressed globose to subellipsoid, 7-12(-15) mm wide, ripening yellow-brown; male flowers in 1-2 rings, with 1 stamen; gall flowers with the perianth covering the red ovary; female flowers sessile or short-stalked, covering up to half of the red-brown ovary. Seed 0.7-0.8 mm long. F. ribes has been subdivided into 3 varieties, mainly based on the indumentum and shape of the leaves. It occurs in lowland and montane forest, up to 2400 m altitude. In Java it is fertile throughout the year.

6, 15, 20, 30, 75.

M.S.M. Sosef