Ficus amplocarpa

Mahima, Karthikeyan, Sudhakar, Jana Venkata & Ramalingam, Sathishkumar, 2020, Taxonomic delimitation of endemic Ficus amplocarpa and Ficus dalhousiae Complexes (Moraceae) by DNA barcoding, Phytotaxa 436 (1), pp. 21-35 : 22-23

Ficus amplocarpa complex

Ficus amplocarpa and F. guttata are endemic species of Western Ghats of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu belonging to subgenera Synoecia (Miq.) Miq. ( Corner, 1965) . They are almost identical to F. laevis , distributed in Northeast, and Andaman & Nicobar Islands, however both are distinct in cauliflorus figs with short (up to 1 cm) peduncles. However, figs are axillary with long peduncles (1.5–4 cm) in F. laevis . In F. amplocarpa young shoots are glabrous or puberulous, leaves ovate to lanceolate, style of female flowers glabrous, figs without ooze of resin at maturity, where as in F. guttata young shoots are dense pubescent, leaves cordate, densely to thinly tomentose, style of female flowers with tuft of apical hairs, figs with ooze of resin at maturity. Morphological differences of F. amplocarpa and F. guttata are described in Table 2. Corner (1960, 1965) reduced F. amplocarpa (= F. macrocarpa Miq. ) as a variety of F. laevis ( F. laevis var. macrocarpa (Miq.) Corner ) and also merged F. guttata under this variety. Morphological and anatomical studies ( Sudhakar & Murthy, 2016) proved that these two species can be recognized as distinct and may not be treated under F. laevis . But, most of the floras and online plant databases, i.e. the plant list, tropicos, ipni etc., still follow Corner’s view.

Therefore, we attempted to prove the distinctness of these two complex species and to confirm the taxonomic status of F. anamalayana , F. dalhousiae , F. amplocarpa , F. guttata and F. laevis at sub generic level using DNA barcoding technique.