A large shrub or small, evergreen tree, 3-10 m tall, with wide spreading crown. Trunk short, stout, c. 1.5 m in circumference, bark warty, pale-grey or, young twigs pubescent, hollow. Leaves with 2.5-10 (-15) cm long petiole; lamina broadly ovate to rotundate-ovate,10-30 (-36) cm long, (5-) 8-30 cm broad, 51-costate at the cordate base, entire or shallow toothed, acute to shortly acuminate or subobtuse, glabreacent to glabrous above, softly pubescent beneath, lateral nerves 34 pairs, bulging on both sides, intercostals almost parallel; stipules ovate-lanceolate, 12-25 (-30) mm long, softly hairy. Hypanthodia on 20-30 mm long, stout, pubescent peduncles, borne in bunches on leafless, short branchlets from trunk or main branches (cauliflorous), broadly binate turbinate or depressed globose, longitudinally 8.12-ribbed, 2-2.5 cm across, pubescent, subtended by 3, large, triangular-ovate basal bracts, apical orifice with 5-6 triangular bracts. Male flowers: sessile, ostiolar, in several whorls; large, inflated, imbricate; stamens 2 (-3), filaments much longer than anothers. Gall flowers in lower part of male hypanthodium, with 2-3-lobed calyx. Female flowers: subsessile to pedicellate; sepals united, 2-3-lobed; ovary with subterminal long hairy style, stigma dilated-cylindric. Figs depressed globose broadly turbinate, 3-7.5 cm in diameter, russet or purple-brown and speckled, ribbed, silky hairy.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: August-November.

Type: “Habitat cults in Cochinchine: puto etiam agrestis”.

Distribution: Pakistan (Rawalpindi, Hazara, Kashmir), N.W. to N.E. India, Bhutan, Burma, China and Japan, upto 2000 m along streams and valleys; cultivated elsewhere.

The young branches are usually lopped for fodder. The fruit is also eaten raw or cooked in curries.