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Ashraf T Soliman,Rim S Hamdy,Riham A Mahdy

doi:10.26842/binhm.7.2021.16.4.0429

Abstract

The taxonomy of Ficus L., 1753 species is confusing because of the intense morphological variability and the ambiguity of the taxa. This study handled 36 macro-morphological characteristics to clarify the taxonomic identity of the taxa. The study revealed that Ficus is represented in the Egyptian gardens with forty-one taxa; 33 species, 4 subspecies and 4 varieties, and classified into five subgenera: Ficus Corner, 1960; Terega Raf., 1838; Sycomorus Raf., 1838; Synoecia (Miq.) Miq., 1867, and Spherosuke Raf.,1838; out of them seven were misidentified. Amongst, four new Ficus taxa were recently introduced to Egypt namely: F. lingua subsp. lingua Warb. ex De Wild. & T. Durand, 1901; F. pumila L., 1753; F. rumphii Blume, 1825, and F. sur Forssk., 1775. The application of the multivariate analyses in plant systematics namely the two-way clustering analysis and the principal component analysis revealed that the qualitative characters as the presence or absence of lateral peduncular or ostiolar bracts and the leaf margin delimit the differentiation of subgenera within genus Ficus. Whereas the qualitative characters of the leaf as leaf arrangement, lamina shape, length, ratio of length to width, base, apex, number of lateral veins, stipules and figs either pedunculate or sessile, shape, and width are significantly separating the species within the different sections. Seven different identification keys of the studied taxa based on the examined characters are provided. In addition, a diagrammatic key for all the studied taxa is given.

Highlights

Ficus L., 1753 (Moraceae), is ranked as one of the largest twentieth genera of angiosperms (Frodin, 2004); it is comprised of over 1000 species of trees, shrubs, climbers, stranglers, or woody epiphytes distributed throughout tropical and subtropical regions of the world (Weiblen, 2000), half of them are recorded in Asia and Australia
Namely the plant habit, the sexuality, leaf margin, ostiole bracts number, internal floral bracts, peduncular bracts, and lateral bracts are used to differentiate between the investigated Ficus taxa into five subgenera
The abbreviations of these characters are presented in Table (1) and at the top of the columns in Diagram (1).The results of the studied taxa revealed that these taxa were belonging to five subgenera namely: Ficus Corner, 1960; Terega Raf., 1838; Sycomorus Raf., 1838, Synoecia (Miq.) Miq., 1867, and Spherosuke Raf., 1838

Summary

Introduction

Ficus L., 1753 (Moraceae), is ranked as one of the largest twentieth genera of angiosperms (Frodin, 2004); it is comprised of over 1000 species of trees, shrubs, climbers, stranglers, or woody epiphytes distributed throughout tropical and subtropical regions of the world (Weiblen, 2000), half of them are recorded in Asia and Australia. Africa and the Neotropics are hosting 110 and 130 species; it respectively shows the most diversified taxa concerning growth habits (Harrison, 2005). This genus is characterized by the milky juice and the presence of minute unisexual flowers inserted internally on the wall of an urceolate receptacle emerging externally through an apical pore (orifice) usually protected by scale-like bracts (Hutchinson and Dalziel, 1958; Sharma, 1993). Several Ficus species are reported to have medicinal properties as an antimalarial, antitrypanosoma (Caliskan et al, 2017), antidiabetic and antioxidant (Arunachalam and Parimelazhagan, 2014)

Methods

Results

Conclusion