Ficus carica subspecies rupestris discussion

Charlie Dodgson

Charlie Dodgson

Well-known member
My knowledge of this plant is very sketchy so far, so I decided to assemble some reading material. Descriptions of F.c. rupestris are in the article introductions. One of them has pictures.

What other descriptions have you read?

A few notes:
  • F. carica var. rupestris – it is a landrace specimen from a breeding program
  • Ficus carica subsp. rupestris – it might have originated in a wild population
 

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merry christmas again! those inaturalist observations are best viewed in "grid" mode.

at 1st glance i assumed that ficus carica rupestris was basically the same as ficus palmata. but i think that palmata is a lot more delicate looking. at the uc riverside botanic garden is the oldest specimen of ficus palmata i've personally seen. i'm assuming that ira condit planted it himself. the leaves are rather thin and flimsy. the rupestris leaves look a lot more thick and sturdy in comparison. and the rupestris plant itself seems more dense and compact with many of the leaves facing up.

this particular plant on inaturalist looks so incredibly amazing i can't stop drooling. how to describe the leaf color? olive green? and those wonderfully subtle red veins. i need it in my life so badly. 1st time i've ever wanted to visit turkey. please everyone form an orderly line to put money in the donation box to send me to turkey. :D

a few months back i found a fig tree on the side of the 10 freeway that i referred to as a palmata type...

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now it seems closer to rupestris than palmata. quite a few of the leaves face up like rupestris. but i'm pretty sure that this tree is a cross between palmata and carica, thanks in no small part to condit's palmata tree. perhaps rupestris is basically a cross between palmata and carica.

in my thread about the most cauliflorous carica or palmata i asked the question about where the cauliflorous trait came from. in the case of rupestris, the question is where the spade leaf came from. did carica independently invent this wheel? or did it borrow it from palmata? did palmata independently invent this wheel? or did it borrow it from rupestris? they all share the same pollinator so it makes more sense that the spade leaf was invented once and then shared through hybridization. then again, convergent evolution seems to happen rather often.
 
ok, ok, i'm reading @GoodFriendMike's mind loud and clear that i should have shared pics of condit's palmata. here are the pics i took last month...

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it's growing in a big rock and it's trying to grow all around it...

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its growth form is more like a rhizome than a typical tree with a single trunk. i don't know if this is because it's growing in a rock. the leaves...

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it's male. i wonder how many female caricas it has pollinated over the years. with a time machine it would be lots of fun to go back 100 years and plant some johannis here in socal and then return to the present to see the difference. on inaturalist i've been really appreciating all the wonderful diversity of carica and its closest relatives and it really makes me want to see the same amount of diversity locally. heck, who am i kidding, i'd love to see 100x times more local diversity than can be found on inaturalist. richard, @finestcitygarden and @Figology let's goooooo! where's mr fons at??
 
F. carica, F. Johannis and F. palmata form a very difficult complex of deciduous figs. Specific limits are far from clear, intra-specific variation in each of the three species is homologous, and their extreme forms further complicate the situation. Many varieties and forms, and even individual species, have been recognised in the past.

The so-called cultivated fig is sometimes thought to have originated from hybridisation of several species, with the Arabian peninsula being suggested as the place of origin. On the basis of the rich SW Asiatic collections (though not as yet from Arabia) it can be suggested that, if the cultivated fig is of hybrid origin, then its parents could be F. carica subsp. rupestris and F. Johannis; the ranges of these two species overlap in Iran. On the other hand, F. carica subsp. carica seems to represent this very hybrid, cultivated and selected for millenis; it also, as a result anthropo- or zoochoric dispersal, readily establishes itself. This latter characteristic makes it very difficult to define its true native distribution and has led to differing views about its status in, for instance, the Mediterranean area, the Caucasus and N Iran.

If this suggested hypothesis is correct then the substantial variation in the leaf lobing of F. carica subsp. carica is more understandable, since it is inherited from F. Johannis. The occurrence of forms with un-lobed leaves could be a result of the influence of F. carica subsp. rupestris. It is possible that this taxon deserves to be given specific rank; its range is SW Anatolia, N Syria, N Iraq and SW Iran. However, intermediate forms between subsp. rupestris and subsp. carica are found in the north of the range of subsp. rupestris in Anatolia and Iran. Such specimens are: Persia: W: Esf.: 30 km S Esfahan, 1700 m, PABOT 8289! Arak: SE Arak (Sultanabad), STR. 366! Bakht.: Tal-i Mansur, KOELZ 15104! Asmand prope Lordegan, 1000 m, IRANSHAHR & MOUSSAVI 15645-E! Lur.: Pol-e Ma’mulan 60 km a Khorramabad versus Andimeshk, 1200 m, WDB. & ASSADI 16597! - Kazimierz Browicz, Moraceae
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The paper by Sumbul et al. is not big on verbal description, but they included wonderful tables of attributes for the 42 naturally occuring F.c. rupestris specimens they sampled in Tunceli province, Iran. From those tables, FCR-32 looks like a great dwarfing rootstock. Here they are, combined into an Excel CSV file:
 

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epiphyte said:
at 1st glance i assumed that ficus carica rupestris was basically the same as ficus palmata.
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In the data collected by Sumbul et al, 17 of the 42 specimens have multi-lobed leaves. Only 16 of the 42 are structurally erect, the remainder are listed as creeping, spreading, or weeping.
 
epiphyte said:
ok, ok, i'm reading @GoodFriendMike's mind loud and clear that i should have shared pics of condit's palmata. here are the pics i took last month...

View attachment 3143

it's growing in a big rock and it's trying to grow all around it...

View attachment 3144

its growth form is more like a rhizome than a typical tree with a single trunk. i don't know if this is because it's growing in a rock. the leaves...

View attachment 3146

View attachment 3147

it's male. i wonder how many female caricas it has pollinated over the years. with a time machine it would be lots of fun to go back 100 years and plant some johannis here in socal and then return to the present to see the difference. on inaturalist i've been really appreciating all the wonderful diversity of carica and its closest relatives and it really makes me want to see the same amount of diversity locally. heck, who am i kidding, i'd love to see 100x times more local diversity than can be found on inaturalist. richard, @finestcitygarden and @Figology let's goooooo! where's mr fons at??
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That would be an amazing trip. Your current and future work can lay the foundation for future generations. Consider it an investment for the generations.
 
epiphyte said:
it would be lots of fun to go back 100 years and plant some johannis here in socal
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Alternately, one can travel to Europe and western Asia and view the remnants of the F. carica, F. johannis, and F. palmata orchards planted by the Romans 2,000 years ago.
 
epiphyte said:
perhaps rupestris is basically a cross between palmata and carica.
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It's an interesting theory.

Recent paleobiology investigations have found that indigenous F. carica subsp. carica once ranged from Spain eastward into western India. The latter occurred after the Indian subcontinent began merging with southern Asia over 30 m.y.a.

F. palmata had a narrower range in western Asia, and then India.

F. johannis subsp. johannis is indigenous to the hill country south of the Caspian Sea. F. johannis subsp. afghanistanica is indigenous to central Iran and portions of Afghanistan.

F. carica subsp. rupestris is indigenous to eastern Turkey.

To assist in the determination of the order of evolution, I am sequencing all of the above. Other researchers will analyze the sequences and debate their conclusions for years. If I'm lucky I'll live to read about the results.
 
Charlie Dodgson said:
It's an interesting theory.

Recent paleobiology investigations have found that indigenous F. carica subsp. carica once ranged from Spain eastward into western India. The latter occurred after the Indian subcontinent began merging with southern Asia over 30 m.y.a.

F. palmata had a narrower range in western Asia, and then India.

F. johannis subsp. johannis is indigenous to the hill country south of the Caspian Sea.

F. carica subsp. rupestris is indigenous to eastern Turkey.

To assist in the determination of the order of evolution, I am sequencing all of the above. Other researchers will analyze the sequences and debate their conclusions for years. If I'm lucky I'll live to read about the results.
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I have posted about it in the past. I wonder if Carica is Palmata X Johannis.
I am looking forward to the results of your study.
 
GoodFriendMike said:
I wonder if Carica is Palmata X Johannis.
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A few more pieces of information.

For the cross you are considering, this would mean that a purebred F. johannis population was geographically adjacent to a purebred F. palmata population -- and then the two merged into a new population, eliminating the prior two. It's certainly possible over geologic time prior to hominoids.

Alternately, some researchers postulate that all of these evolved from a common ancestor that has since disappeared.
 
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even more merry christmas...

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palmata's distribution is strange, but i'm not sure how much this has to do with the absence of inaturalists in the middle of its range. oman looks bone dry but it actually has a small pocket of seasonal rain forest that i'm sure would be suitable habitat for palmata.
 
GoodFriendMike said:
Is not historical and current distribution observation's?
If they where not observed. Than who knew they existed.?
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Those observations are solely from users of iNaturalist. The current geographical native distribution is large, extending in all directions from what is shown, including the middle third of India (north-south wise).
 
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