Ficus elastica
(rubber plant)

Preferred Common Name

• rubber plant

International Common Names

• English: India rubber fig; India rubber tree; Indian rubber tree; India-rubber tree; karet-tree; rubber fig tree
• Spanish: caucho; cauchú comun; higuera cauchera
• French: arbre a caoutchouc; figuier élastique
• Chinese: yin du rong

Local Common Names

• Cameroon: bikehi
• Caroline Islands: gak'iynigoma
• Cook Islands: rapa
• Cuba: goma elástica; hule; ule
• Dominican Republic: higuera
• Germany: Gummi- Feigenbaum; Gummibaum
• Ghana: amanyedua
• Haiti: caoutchouc
• India: atha bor; athabor; attah bar; bor; devak-araung; dewak-araung; diengjri; goli; goni; labor; nisatong; phrap ramkhet; phrapramkhet; rabbaru; rabracho-vad; sagubanka; sangria; shimayal; simamarri; simayal; simeyala
• Indonesia: kajai; karet; rambung
• Indonesia/Sumatra: kajoe aro karet; tuin bij de kampong
• Italy: Fico della gomma
• Japan: indo-gomu-no-ki
• Japan/Ryukyu Archipelago: gumugii
• Malaysia: bunoh seteroh; nyatus
• Marshall Islands: wojke-roba
• Micronesia, Federated states of: komunoki; rapah; repah
• Myanmar: bedi; ganoi; kanoi; moih-krat kanoi ganoi; nyaung-kyetpaung
• Nepal: labar
• Netherlands: indische Gomelastiekboom
• Nicaragua: palo de hule
• Palau: komunoki
• Philippines: balete
• Portugal: arvore da borracha; borracheira
• Samoa: tagamimi palagi
• Thailand: lung; yang india; yang lop
• United States Virgin Islands: Indian rubber fig
• Vietnam: c(aa)y (dd)a

EPPO code

• FIUEL (Ficus elastica)

• Domain: Eukaryota
•     Kingdom: Plantae
•         Phylum: Spermatophyta
•             Subphylum: Angiospermae
•                 Class: Dicotyledonae
•                     Order: Urticales
•                         Family: Moraceae
•                             Genus: Ficus
•                                 Species: Ficus elastica

Often called the mulberry family, Moraceae consists of about 40 genera and 1000 species of trees, shrubs, lianas, or rarely herbs, nearly all with milky sap, and mainly of tropical or subtropical origin (Whistler, 2000; University of Hawaii, 2014). The milky sap of various Moraceae species contains ‘heart poisons’ that are used as dart poisons in some cultures; other plant parts such as leaves and fruit juices have also been reported to cause allergic and toxic reactions in humans and livestock (Frohne and Pfa¨nder, 2005).

Ficus is a large genus of about 800-1000 tree and shrub species native to the tropics and subtropics that are often cultivated beyond their native range for their fig fruits or as ornamentals. Members of this genus are difficult to distinguish by their flowers, but can be differentiated by habit, whether they are banyans or not, by leaf shape, and by their fruits (Whistler, 2000).

The common name of Ficus elastica, rubber fig tree, refers to the milky white sap that is tapped from the tree’s bark (Whistler, 2000; Starr et al., 2003). The name Ficus elastica was published by Roxburgh in 1814. The species is often cited as F. elastica Roxb. Ex Hornem, as the name is often considered a nomen nudem; however, Roxburgh added 'LT', a code for 'Large Tree', 'HS', a code for flowering in the 'Hot Season', 'RS', a code for fruiting in the 'Rainy Season' and he states that the fruit is solitary or paired, that the tree abounds in rubber, that its Bengal name is 'kusmeer' and that the tree arrived in the garden in 1810, brought by a Mr. M.R. Smith (Tawan, 2000). This datasheet cites the species as F. elastica Roxb.

Large trees up to 20 m tall; young branches glabrous, with yellowish-brown to gray exfoliating epidermis. Elliptic to oblong leaves (6-) 12-30 cm long and 5-15 cm wide, acuminate at apex, rounded at base, glabrous, smooth, leathery, gray to brown when dry; petioles 2.5-5 cm long, glabrous, yellowish-brown to black, stipules (0.4-) 5-15 cm long, glabrous to seríceas. Two fruits per node, obovoid, 1-2 cm long, glabrous, green with dark spots, ostiole slightly conical, sessile, basal bracts fused and forming a domed base, wavy apically, 1.5-2.5 mm long, glabrous or sometimes puberulent. [Description from Flora of Nicaragua, 2014].

F. elastica is native to India and southern Asia. One of its common names, ‘India rubber tree’, refers to its former use as an economically important crop plant for rubber. Plantations for this purpose were established in the mid-nineteenth century, mainly in Southeast Asia including Malaysia, Myanmar, Sumatra, and Java, but with the rise in production of the superior-quality rubber Hevea brasiliensis,F. elastica fell into commercial disuse (Strettell, 1876; Coventry, 1906; Tawan, 2000; Whistler, 2000).

Date of introduction to the West Indies is uncertain, but in 1903 Urban reported that the species was being cultivated in many islands of the West Indies including the Bahamas, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Barbados (Urban, 1898-1928). Specimens of F. elastica were collected in Puerto Rico in 1913 (Smithsonian Herbarium Collections). The species was certainly present by 1924, as it was included in volume 5 of Britton and Wilson’s flora of Puerto Rico which reported it as “grown for shade and ornament in Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands” (Britton and Wilson, 1924). In Europe, the species was apparently introduced by accident to Italy around 1500, but it has not yet become established (DAISIE, 2014). In South America the species appears to be a very recent introduction to the offshore Chilean Robinson Crusoe Island, yet it has already been reported as invasive; a 2006 report mentioned that it had been planted by some young people in San Juan Bautista, and by 2011 it had been reported as invasive (PIER, 2014). Its ability to spread beyond cultivation and to naturalize or become invasive may depend on whether its specialist pollinator wasp has also been introduced to the area (Starr et al., 2003).

Soil drainage

• free

Soil reaction

• acid
• alkaline
• neutral

Soil texture

• heavy
• light
• medium

Although native to Asia, F. elastica has been intentionally introduced by humans for commercial cultivation of its latex for rubber as well as for ornamental purposes, and is now pantropical. The species reproduces by both cuttings and seeds. The figs are eaten by birds and animals that then disperse the seeds (Starr, 2003; Gilman and Watson, 2014). It is also possible that seeds and cuttings are dispersed by water, as the species is known to grow in coastal areas (Randall, 2012; Catalogue of Vascular Plants of Ecuador, 2014).

As F. elastica was commercially cultivated for rubber in non-native parts of southeast Asia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it has naturalized and in some cases become invasive. Data has not been reported on the extent of the species’ negative impact on non-native environments, but in its native habitats where it begins life as an epiphyte, it will strangle its host before establishing itself as a large, spreading tree that creates dense shade, restricting growth beneath it (Tawan, 2000; Starr et al., 2003; Gilman and Watson, 2014). 

• Proved invasive outside its native range
• Abundant in its native range
• Tolerates, or benefits from, cultivation, browsing pressure, mutilation, fire etc
• Tolerant of shade
• Long lived
• Fast growing
• Has propagules that can remain viable for more than one year
• Reproduces asexually

• Host damage

• Competition - shading
• Competition - strangling
• Produces spines, thorns or burrs

• Highly likely to be transported internationally deliberately

F. elastica is planted for ornamental purposes in the Philippines (Merrill, 1923). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was heavily cultivated for commercial rubber production, but fell into disuse with the rise in production of the higher-quality ‘para’ rubber, Hevea brasiliensis (Strettell, 1876; Coventry, 1906; Tawan, 2000; Whistler, 2000). The species has also been reported as a fodder tree species commonly occurring in Indian farmlands (Singh, 2001; PIER, 2014).