Ficus Lyrata

The Ficus lyrata, commonly called the fiddle-leaf fig, is a perfect indoor specimen plant. The plant features very large, heavily veined, and violin-shaped leaves that grow upright on a tall plant. The name fiddle given to this plant comes from its kind of fiddle (violin) shaped leaves).

In their natural habitat and outdoors Ficus Lyrata plants will produce flowers and then fruits, however, indoors it rarely happens. Ficus Lyrata plants can be propagated from stem-tip cuttings, but it's generally advisable to buy a plant. Commercial growers use a cloning method called tissue culture to produce consistently superior plants to the ones that average growers can obtain from cuttings. Matching their efforts at home is unlikely too impossible.

This ficus is a slow growing plant that may take up to 10 -15 years to reach full maturity, but after 3 or 4 years of growth it starts to become an attractive tree like ornamental house plant. Leaves and trunk have prominent veins through the center and from the center to the edge of the leaves. These leaves have a glossy appearance and grow up to 12 inches long and 5 inches or more wide. The trunk (although it's strong) is quite an odd one that grows very thin but long, which makes the plant a bushy type tree and full at the top without lower leaves.