Ficus

An incredibly fickle plant at times, they may moult if their location is altered or their is a significant temperature change. In order for some ficus plants to do well, they have to have a steady environment, that is, temperature, sunlight, water, and other planty things must remain fairly similar, constant.

They're also pretty susceptible to leaf rot if over-watered or denied of decent amounts of sunlight.

The root system of a ficus is somewhat delicate, though often you can see some of it above the soil surface looking all woody and twisted and gnarly, it's neat. They lose leaves regularly, it's not uncommon to have some leaf loss nearly daily with some varieties, while others may lose only a few a month. If the environment is changed drastically, however, you may end up with a naked plant in a matter of hours, though the leaves will eventually grow back.

I've a few ficus plants, one that has rubber tree type leaves, and another that looks somewhat oriental. (Though, it may just look oriental to me because I've seen them in chinese restaurants before..) They're neat little guys, but not as neat as my cuban tree.

In the humorous late-1970s science fiction television series Quark, Ficus was the science officer on the garbage-hauling starship in which the series took place. A superintelligent, emotionless, humanoid plant, Ficus was an obvious parody of Star Trek's Mister Spock.

Fi"cus (?), n. [L., a fig.]

A genus of trees or shrubs, one species of which (F. Carica) produces the figs of commerce; the fig tree.

⇒ Ficus Indica is the banyan tree; F. religiosa, the peepul tree; F. elastica, the India-rubber tree.

 

© Webster 1913.