Ficus cordata Thunb. subsp. salicifolia (Vahl) C.C. Berg
F. salicifolia Vahl, F. teloukat Batt. & Trab.
Eng.: Namaqua fig, wonderboom. Spa.: Higuera hoja de sauce. Fre.: Figuier à feuilles de saule. Ara.: Kerma, kermusa, saymuk. Tamahaq: Telukat, tha’ab, atofi (Aïr).
Shrub or small tree, evergreen, monoecious, up to 8(10) m in height. Extended shape, with rounded crown. Trunk tortuous, with greyish-whitish bark, little or not at all fissured except at the base of very old specimens. Branches extended or extended-erect. Bark of old branches of the same colour as the trunk, greenish and finely pubescent in younger branches. Leaves 2.5-20 × 1-4 cm, alternate, lanceolate, straight or slightly curved, acute, with a ± rounded base, sometimes slightly cordate, entire margin, slightly coriaceous, intense green on both sides but slightly lighter on the underside, slightly pubescent when young, then glabrescent. Petiole (2-6 cm), less than half the length of the leaf, glabrous or slightly pubescent. Male and female flowers very small, 1.5-2.5 mm long, with a single whorl of 5 linear-lanceolate parts; flowers grow grouped along a short and thick peduncle; male flowers with 3 stamens —longer than the perianth—, located above the female flowers. Fruit a set of tiny achenes enclosed in a syconium or “fig”, slightly fleshy, very small (5-10 mm diameter), pyriform or subglobose, green to pinkish, finely pubescent.
Flowering:
Usually after rains, so it does not have a fixed period.
Fruiting:
About 4-5 months after flowering.
Habitat:
It grows on substrates of very diverse origin; but since it is a species of desert and subdesert, sabanoid terrains in the region, it almost always appears along river beds, valley bottoms and other depressions; it also grows in rocky crevices.
Distribution:
Tropical Africa and Arabian Peninsula. In Africa, it reaches towards the N to the mountain ranges of central Sahara: Tassili-n-Ajjer, Akakus, Ahaggar , Ahnet, Mouydir, Tefedest and Tibesti.
Observations:
A very similar taxon is F. cordata subsp. lecardii (Warb.) C.C.Berg [F. lecardii Warb.], but can be distinguished by much wider leaves and reticulate tertiary venation. It grows in the Mauritanian Adrar and seems to reach to the N the Zemmour region.
Conservation status:
Common and widely distributed species, it does not seem threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, the Saharan populations, that can be considered of high genetic and biogeographic value, are threatened by logging and desertification. In Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012).