African Wildlife and Environment Issue 67

One of the many huge sycomore figs in a “forest” of figs in Ndumu Game Reserve. Photographs: Eugene Moll

All figs are all either trees, some enormous as free standing individuals like the Sycomore Fig Ficus sycomorus , or stranglers like the Blunt-leaved Fig F. craterostoma; or scandent climbers like theScrambling Fig F. burtt-davyi , and some can be slender shrubs fringing slow-flowing rivers or the edges of swamps like the Okovango River Sandpaper Fig F. capreifolia. F. sur (previously F. capensis ), family Moraceae , is one of our biggest figs, occurring in forest, bushveld and/or along rivers, usually in rocky sites. Its natural distribution is from Knysna north along the east coasts as far inland as the Drakensberg; while further north it extends inland and is found in Mpumalanga

and Limpopo, Zimbabwe and extending into North Africa. I have even seen rare individuals in north western Namibia, fringing wetlands supplied by artesian water. In fact, the species name ‘sur’ comes from a region in Ethiopia (originally the species was also described from the ‘Cape’ – hence the old name capensis , but later it was discovered that the Ethiopian description pre-dated capensis ; so, following the rules of taxonomic nomenclature the oldest name is the correct one – hence F. sur ). F. sur is readily distinguished from all the other southern Africa figs, as in addition to the diagnostic characteristics of all fig species; namely that they all

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