Ficus is the classical Latin name the Romans gave to the shrubby common fig tree Ficus carica from Asia, whose leaves the Bible tells us were worn by Adam and Eve (Macoboy 1979). It is uncertain why Miquel, when he described this species for the first time in 1847, used the specific name ingens, which means enormous or huge. The leaves or tree are certainly not the largest in the genus. In Gauteng area the trees attain a height of only 8 m.

The most famous specimen of Ficus ingens in southern Africa is the large fig tree known as 'the Inhabited Tree' or 'Moffat's Tree'. The missionary Robert Moffat, while on his way to the Matabele chief in 1829, came across an enormous tree in the Rustenburg District in North-West Province in whose spreading branches were built seventeen conical huts in three tiers, all above ground level beyond the reach of lions (Burrows & Burrows 2003).

The genus belongs to the relatively large Moraceae or fig and mulberry family. It comprises 37 genera and roughly 1 100 species. There are 27 species of Ficus indigenous to the Flora of southern Africa region. From the ± 750 species of the genus Ficus, about 110 occur in Africa and Madagascar. The Australian region is the richest with ± 500 species and the New World has 150 species.