Moraceae

Ficus is the largest genus in Moraceae, with about 880 species found throughout the tropics and subtropics and especially diverse in Borneo and New Guinea. Unlike other genera in the family, its tiny flowers are enclosed inside a hollow, urn-shaped receptacle (the syconium, or fig) and are pollinated by specialised fig wasps that enter it. Some species start life on other trees and send down aerial roots, and most exude a milky latex when damaged. Widely grown as houseplants are the rubber plant (F. elastica), fiddle-leaf fig (F. lyrata) and weeping fig (F. benjamina), while the common fig (F. carica) is cultivated for its fruit.