Most fruit have a fruit stalk or peduncle which attaches the body of the fruit to the host plant A common feature of many figs is that they also possess a stipe which is an elongated part of the fruit which acts like a fruit stalk or peduncle.
The purpose of the stipe is the same that that of a peduncle. It makes it easier for an animal that wants to eat the fig to remove it from the host tree. Stipes and peduncles are particularly common with bat dispersed figs that ripen green such as such as Ficus fistulosa and Ficus callosa. Small fruit bats snatch the figs in flight and eat the fig hanging from a quiet feeding roost away from the fig tree.
No Figs in Section Conosycea (stranglers) have stipes apart from Ficus dubia. This unique feature means that Ficus dubia figs are very easy to recognize even though the leaves are similar to the leaves of Ficus drupacea and Ficus kerkhovenii.
