Trees, shrubs, vines, rarely herbs; frequently with milky or watery latex, sometimes spiny. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, petiolate; leaf blade simple, margin entire, serrate or palmately-lobed, venation pinnate or palmate, 3-5-costate; stipules 2, lateral, fugacious and leaving a distinct annular scar. Inflorescences axillary, frequently paired, racemes, spikes, catkins, globose heads or hypanthodium. Flowers unisexual (plants dioecious or monoecious), actinomorphic, hypogynous to epigynous, monochlamydeous, perianth calycine. Sepals (1 or) 2-4(-8), biseriate, free, imbricate or valvate or +/- connate, enveloping the carpel in female flowers. Petals absent. Male Flowers: Stamens as many as sepals, often less, antisepalous, filaments straight or inflexed in bud, free; anthers bithecous, versatile, longitudinally dehiscent. Pistillode often present. Female Flowers: Calyx lobes usually 4. Carpels 2, syncarpous, 1 carpel frequently abortive, ovary superior, semi-inferior to inferior, usually 1-locular, ovules solitary, anatropous, campylotropous, pendulous from apex, rarely basal and upright; style often eccentric, branches 1 or 2; stigmas usually filiform. Fruit a simple drupe, nut or achene or sometimes sorosis (when inflorescence catkin) or syconus (when inflorescence hypanthodium). Seeds solitary, endosperm present or absent.

48 genera and about 1400 species

Ficus auriculata

Ficus benghalensis

Ficus benjamina

Ficus elastica

Ficus lyrata

Ficus palmata

Ficus palmata var. virgata

Ficus pumila var. pumila

Ficus racemosa

Ficus religiosa

Ficus virens

Morus alba