ID help needed

[KansasLuke]

 

[moke]

View attachment 177082

Looks like a willow leaf ficus?

 

[hemmy]

Based on leaf size and shape I would say Ficus binnendijkii or Ficus maclellandii (sometimes called Ficus longifolia). Based on the bottom link a good zoom of the top and bottom side of the leaf may help determine.

http://www.guide-to-houseplants.com/ficus-alii.html


https://www.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/ThaiForestBulletin/article/view/24194

 

[KansasLuke]

Thanks! It looks to be the ficus binnendijki.

 

[hemmy]

Thanks! It looks to be the ficus binnendijki.

So no hairs at the base of leaf or stipules?

 

[M. Frary]

Weeping foemina is my guess.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

you don't see that one every day. Interesting ficus

 

[Timbo]

Looks like a willow leaf ficus?

Way too big leaves to be willow leaf.
I thought a Gum tree at first glance...I dunno anything about those other Ficus trees.

 

[Melospiza]

Sabre-leaf fig!

 

[Starfox]

Ficus binnendijkii

Definitely this. I have one and they are hard to mistake.

 

[KansasLuke]

Hey everyone,
I have obtained this Ficus Binnendijkii from the previous owner, since last time i posted.
Wondering strategies for re potting since the plant is severely root bound and is currently in a sandy/clay soil.

Should i step up to the next size pot and do a very gentle removal of the outside layer of soil or something a little more aggressive to try and alleviate the clay soil of the inners of the ball?
Watering currently is very difficult due to the compact and hard packed soil. As the picture shows large roots circle the top of the pot. Could/should i do anything with the top roots?

Trying to get the plant back to a healthier state. At its new location it has stabilized and is showing minor new growth. All advice is much appreciated!

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Hello Luke,
I'm assuming you are in Kansas the state or the City. Your Ficus binnendkji is a tree from Indonesia. In low and medium elevations, Indonesia never gets cooler than 70 F or 18 or 19 C even on their coldest nights of "winter". While Ficus are adaptable plants, this species likes warmth and humidity. I would not repot it until your daytime temperatures are getting warm, late May, or early June. This tree is semi dormant. If you disturb the roots now. You could kill it. Just limp it along as is.

Unless the home you are keeping it in is kept warm, constantly above 72 F. If it starts growing in multiple places, then it is okay to repot.

When you repot, Do Not Be Gentle. You need to begin the process of of fixing that root system. Cut all those circling roots. Remove 75% of the root system. If you do this at the beginning of the hot summer, the tree will seem to just sit, then after 4 weeks or so, it will explode into growth. May-June is the time to repot Ficus. During the beginning of summer you can reduce them to just about anything, a bare cutting with no roots, and they will thrive. Do the same thing at the beginning of winter, and dead fire wood is all you will get. So wait, winter is not over yet.

 

[Michael P]

Leo is right. I rescued a similar plant from a trash pile, and treated it as he describes. Within two years it was a huge flourishing house plant. The form of my specimen and the leaf size didn't make it a good candidate for bonsai so I gave it to a friend who wanted a huge house plant.

Is this species the same as F. nerifolia? That is the name I know it by.

 

[TN_Jim]

I have/rescued one of these this past October. This tree was and is easily the most severely pot bound plant I have ever seen. It had sat in front of a large west facing office window for 20+ years with only weekly watering.

Once having dug down through the soil and cut ropes of encircling roots I found the three trunks it has emerging from a basketball sized spherical woody base. I cut the encircling mass back hard, chopped away about a quarter of the basketball with a large knife, and put in about 60/40 large perlite/potting soil and bark. I later cut back all trunks to about 1/3 original 7’ -seems to be recovering fine near east window.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Leo is right. I rescued a similar plant from a trash pile, and treated it as he describes. Within two years it was a huge flourishing house plant. The form of my specimen and the leaf size didn't make it a good candidate for bonsai so I gave it to a friend who wanted a huge house plant.

Is this species the same as F. nerifolia? That is the name I know it by.

Not the same. Species in the photos in this post is the Indonesian species. Ficus binnendkji. The Willow leaf Ficus distributed by Weigerts, and widely distributed around the USA is what is usually called nerifolia, but there are reasons to question this. The provenance is cloudy, and there is no type location collection information. It is likely that the tree Weigerts distributes is a Neotropical Ficus, rather than old world ficus. Some day there will be an article. Hopefully Jerry Meislik will get it. Or I will have to task my niece to sort it out. Taxonomy is a rule heavy, archane art.

 

[Starfox]

There is an article or two somewhere but I'll be damned if I can find them at the moment.

Basically the species F. nerifolia and F. salicifolia both exist, nerifolia is an Asian sp. and salicifolia African(I think.)
Both names have been applied to the willow leaf ficus but are incorrect.

In 2004 CC Berg classified the willow leaf as an entirely new species of unknown origin, possibly from Guyana and named it F. salicaria.

Found a link.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3218466?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

 

[Michael P]

Thanks! Taxonomy interests me, but I don't lose sleep over it, lol.

 

[TN_Jim]

I have/rescued one of these this past October. This tree was and is easily the most severely pot bound plant I have ever seen. It had sat in front of a large west facing office window for 20+ years with only weekly watering.

Once having dug down through the soil and cut ropes of encircling roots I found the three trunks it has emerging from a basketball sized spherical woody base. I cut the encircling mass back hard, chopped away about a quarter of the basketball with a large knife, and put in about 60/40 large perlite/potting soil and bark. I later cut back all trunks to about 1/3 original 7’ -seems to be recovering fine near east window.

To clarify -I repotted mine in October because it was in really bad shape and may have not made it through the winter otherwise -I was not condoning this for just being root bound.

Leo’s advice is solid.
Thanks

 

[KansasLuke]

Hello Luke,
I'm assuming you are in Kansas the state or the City. Your Ficus binnendkji is a tree from Indonesia. In low and medium elevations, Indonesia never gets cooler than 70 F or 18 or 19 C even on their coldest nights of "winter". While Ficus are adaptable plants, this species likes warmth and humidity. I would not repot it until your daytime temperatures are getting warm, late May, or early June. This tree is semi dormant. If you disturb the roots now. You could kill it. Just limp it along as is.

Unless the home you are keeping it in is kept warm, constantly above 72 F. If it starts growing in multiple places, then it is okay to repot.

When you repot, Do Not Be Gentle. You need to begin the process of of fixing that root system. Cut all those circling roots. Remove 75% of the root system. If you do this at the beginning of the hot summer, the tree will seem to just sit, then after 4 weeks or so, it will explode into growth. May-June is the time to repot Ficus. During the beginning of summer you can reduce them to just about anything, a bare cutting with no roots, and they will thrive. Do the same thing at the beginning of winter, and dead fire wood is all you will get. So wait, winter is not over yet.

Thank you Leo and everyone. All the advice is much appreciated! I will aggressive repot once the weather constantly gets in that 70s range.

 

[DonovanC]

I have an identical ficus that I’ve concluded is Ficus maclellandii based on this article: Leaf dimorphy in Ficus binnendijkii and Ficus maclellandii (Moraceae) and the identity of the ornamental trees known under the name “F. longifolia”

The article says that Ficus maclellandii has at least a few hairs at the base of each stipule. It’s suggest that this is the defining characteristic between F. maclellandii and F. binnendijkii. The presence of tiny barely visible hairs equals F. Maclellandii.
These hairs are not present on F. binnendijkii according to this article.
Here you can see the hairs on mine: