uncovered a new ficus species, donate to decide where i describe it

[epiphyte]

when i would visit my friend jerry, if i was feeling extra mischievous i’d tell him that he had way too many duplicate staghorns.  this would get a good reaction from him and he would proceed to point out all the significant (to him) differences between them.  the more you study any particular group of plants, or perhaps anything, the more noticeable and significant the differences become.  but even someone completely new to staghorns would probably recognize that platycerium bifurcatum and platycerium superbum are very different. 

personally i’ve spent way more time studying ficus than platyceriums.  the other day on youtube, when i saw a ficus labeled as auriculata, i noticed some significant differences.  but maybe the differences are actually insignificant?  the proof is in the… jelly. 

here are some pics, none of which is mine, but i’m sharing them under the fair use clause.  i’ll update with the proper attributes and links. 

the fruit…

the fruit cut open, with a hand for scale…

a leaf from the tree, with slightly less ripe fruit for scale…

the fruit grows on the trunk (cauliflorous), with a lady for scale…

without any context, if i saw the tree from a distance my 1st guess would be ficus sycomorus.  the leaves are a bit larger than the largest sycomorus leaves i've personally seen, but they are significantly smaller than the typical leaves of ficus auriculata, which is commonly referred to as the elephant ear fig.  plus auriculata leaves are way more corrugated and its fruit is generally larger, flatter, darker red or purple, with pinkish flesh and a large cavity with occasional jelly.  the mystery ficus fruit seems to consistently have jelly.  "jelly fig" wouldn’t be the worst common name for it.  “minor detail” that this common name is already taken by a fig that doesn’t even have any jelly inside it. 

another possible id is ficus racemosa, which is monoecious.  the jelly fig is dioecious (like auriculata and sycomorus).  both racemosa and the jelly fig have similar colored figs though, and the flesh is also the same color.  however, the jelly figs are around twice the size as the racemosa figs, and racemosa leaves are much narrower. 

my first thought was that the jelly fig was a natural hybrid between racemosa and auriculata.  this wouldn’t be surprising since most ficus species have the same number of chromosomes (26), and there’s precedent for natural hybridization between very different species.  but when i did more digging i found quite a few more videos, and also pics, of different jelly fig trees, and their traits were all relatively consistent.  so sadly i don’t see any evidence of the ficus hybrid swarm of my dreams.  but it does point to the jelly fig being a completely new species.  

i googled for examples of new species hidden in plain sight and found an article about a new species of armadillo… 

"Through genetic and trait analysis, biologists say they’ve uncovered the covert variety hiding under the umbrella of the over-simplified armadillo clade."

the moral of the story is that there are too many biologists and not enough botanists?  we’re gonna need more armchair ficus botanists?  the best way to communicate when we truly need more of something is with money. 

if, here on this forum, you truly want more discussion about this possibly new ficus species, which would invariably create more armchair ficus botanists, then please make a donation of any amount to this forum and reply to this thread with the amount.  after one week, whichever forum has raised the most money for itself is where i’ll create a thread to share all my findings about the jelly fig.  and then i’ll share the link to my thread everywhere and anywhere there is anybody who might be interested in learning about the jelly fig.   

[epiphyte]

darn, can't edit the original post, but here are the image sources... 

image one source
image two source
image three source
image four source

the mystery fig is ficus timlada, from the himalayas.  wrote all about it on the figfanatic forum.