Moraceae

Plant Sex: Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious or dioecious).

Flowers: Actinomorphic, very reduced. Perianth mayor may not be present.

Inflorescence: Heads, catkins, or in a specialized structure called a SYCONIUM in Ficus. Ficus species have coevolved with particular species of fig wasps.

Fruits: Achenes, nuts, drupes, or multiples (Maclura).

Habit: Trees, shrubs, and some herbs. Sap milky.

Leaves: Alternate, simple, stipulate.

Examples:
Morus

M. rubra (red mulberry). Shoot with staminate flowers. Shoot with carpellate flowers. Fruiting shoot.
M. alba (white mulberry). Fruiting shoot.

Maclura

M. pomifera (osage orange). Staminate inflorescences. Staminate flowers. Carpellate inflorescence. Carpellate flower in L.S. Multiple fruits, some broken. Fruit close-up showing accrescent tepals. Carpellate inflorescence in L.S.

Ficus

F. carica (fig). A bumpy trunk on a fig (Spain). Shoot with syconia. Syconium in L.S. Flowers.
F. diversifolia (mistletoe fig). Shoot with syconia. Syconium in L.S. Staminate flowers (abortive?).
Ficus sp. Habit of a strangler fig in Queensland Australia.
F. virens. Habit of the curtain fig in Queensland Australia.

Artocarpus

A. altilis (breadfruit). Shoot with young multiple fruit. Fruits.
A. heterophylla. Tree showing multiple fruits arising from trunk.

Dorstenia

D. contrajerna (torus herb). Habit of plant bearing "open syconia". Close-up of the inflorescence.
D. multiradiata. Shoots with inflorescences.
D. radiata. Top view of inflorescence. Inflorescence in L.S.

SIUC / College of Science / Elements of Plant Systematics
URL: http://www.plantbiology.siu.edu/PLB304/Lecture18Rosal/Moraceae.html
Last updated: 01-Apr-09 / dln