Ficus insipida is a common tropical tree in the fig genus of the family Moraceae growing in forest habitats along rivers. It ranges from Mexico to northern South America.
Taxonomy
The tree was described in 1806 under the scientific name Ficus insipida (literally "insipid fig") by Carl Ludwig Willdenow, having studied the herbarium specimens collected in Caracas by the gardener Franz Bredemeyer in the 1780s during the . Willdenow reports its fruit are tasteless. Incongruously, among the many species of figs to grow in the region, this species is in fact recognisable by its large and sweet figs (when ripe).
In the 1960 Flora of Panama, Gordon P. DeWolf Jr. lumped the species F. adhatodifolia and F. crassiuscula as synonyms of F. insipida, but his taxonomic interpretation was not followed by subsequent authorities.
Ficus expert Cees Berg distinguished two allopatric or almost allopatric subspecies in 1984: Ficus insipida subsp. insipida Willd. - Largely glabrous twigs, leaves and petioles. Occurs in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, Venezuela to Bolivia. Ficus insipida subsp. scabra C.C.Berg - Much hairier plant. Occurs in the Guianas, from Venezuela to northeast Brazil.
With about 750 species, Ficus (Moraceae) is one of the largest angiosperm genera. F. insipida is classified in subgenus Pharmacosycea, section Pharmacosycea, subsection Bergianae (for which it is the type species), along with F. adhatodifolia, F. carchiana, F. crassiuscula, F. gigantosyce, F. lapathifolia, F. mutisii, F. oapana (spec. nov.? ined.), F. obtusiuscula, F. piresiana, F. rieberiana and F. yoponensis. Although recent work suggests that subgenus Pharmacosycea is polyphyletic, section Pharmacosycea appears to be monophyletic and is a sister group to the rest of the genus Ficus.
Mysteriously, genetic testing of a single individual of the three fig species F. maxima, F. tonduzii and F. yoponensis, each collected on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, found each species to be phylogenetically nestled within F. insipida. All four species occur together in a similar large range, but nonetheless, these species are quite easily differentiated morphologically. Strangely, in the case of the F. maxima and F. tonduzii specimens, these were nestled within a different haplotype, with an Amazonian distribution, as opposed to clustering within the haplotype found contemporaneously in Panama. An explanation for this is not readily apparent: the species may have recently evolved from F. insipida, although this would seem unlikely, or perhaps all three specimens just happened to be hybrids, another unlikely possibility.
Description
This is a tree with buttress roots that ranges from tall. Because this is a pioneer species which quickly colonises secondary forest, and it is also a fast-growing species which can grow into a massive tree in only 100 years or so, it is generally readily recognisable as the largest trees in such secondary woodlands.
Leaves vary shape from narrow to ellipse-shaped; they range from long and from wide.
Similar species
In Costa Rica or Panama it may be confused with Ficus yoponensis, but this similar lowland fig tree has smaller leaves, stipules and fruit, and only occurs in primary forest, whereas F. insipida is also found in secondary forest. Another similar fig species in this area is F. crassivenosa, but this species has differently shaped leaves and does not have the same habitat preference (the tendency to grow in association with water courses).
Distribution
The nominate subspecies occurs from Mexico south throughout Central America to Colombia and Venezuela and thence to Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Amazonian Brazil, and north from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago and the Lesser Antilles, whereas subspecies scabra occurs from the Guianan Shield of northeast Venezuela eastwards through the Guianas to northwestern Brazil in the states of Amapá and Pará.
In Mexico it has been recorded to occur in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas in the north, southwards to Campeche, Chiapas, Colima, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, México, Michoacán de Ocampo, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Tabasco and Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave. In both Costa Rica and Nicaragua it is found in lowlands along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as in the central valleys.