Ficus platypoda
Ficus platypoda, commonly known as the desert fig or rock fig, is a fig that is endemic to central and northern Australia. It is a lithophytic plant that grows on rocky outcrops, reaching 10 m in height.
Taxonomy
Dutch botanist Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel described the desert fig in 1847 as Urostigma platypodum, from material collected on both the east and west coast of Australia. The material collected by Allan Cunningham from York Sound in Western Australia became the type material. E.J.H. Corner synonymised F. platypoda with Ficus leucotricha, which was described by Miquel in 1861, however as the former name is older, it has become the accepted name instead.Dixon examined the morphology of the Ficus leucotricha and Ficus platypoda complexes and divided them into: Ficus atricha, ''Ficus brachypoda, Ficus cerasicarpa, Ficus platypoda.
With over 750 species, Ficus is one of the largest angiosperm genera. Based on morphology, English botanist E. J. H. Corner divided the genus into four subgenera, which was later expanded to six. In this classification, Ficus platypoda was placed in subseries Malvanthereae, series Malvanthereae, section Malvanthera of the subgenus Urostigma. In his reclassification of the Australian Malvanthera, Australian botanist Dale J. Dixon altered the delimitations of the series within the section, but left this species in the series Malvanthereae.
In a study published in 2008, Nina Rønsted and colleagues analysed the DNA sequences from the nuclear ribosomal internal and external transcribed spacers, and the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase region, in the first molecular analysis of the section Malvanthera. They found F. platypoda to be most closely related to the ancestor of two other arid Northern Territory species and classified it in a new series Obliquae in the subsection Platypodeae. The three species diverged from the ancestor of the transitional rainforest species F. obliqua'' and radiated into drier regions.