| Summary: | Ficus deltoidea Jack is a fig-bushes type species that is native to South East Asia including Malaysia. It is easy to recognize species but have a large morphological variation. A molecular systematic study of F. deltoidea (Moraceae; Section Ficus; subsection Frutescentiae) was conducted based on seven variaties of F. deltoidea; var. angustifolia, var. bilobata, three closely related Ficus species (F. oleifolia, F. erecta and F. ischnopoda) from subsection Frutescentia were used in this study; and F. pumila from section Rhizocladus was designated as an outgroup. In order to determine the phylogeny and infraspecific of F. deltoidea; ITS (internal transcribed spacer), ETS (external transcribed spacer) and G3pdh (glyceraldehydes-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene) were chosen as reliable gene. A total of 1847 nucleotides were generated and sequenced from the ITS, ETS and G3pdh regions. All sequences were then combined and analysed for the maximum parsimony (MP), maximum likehood (ML) and neighbor joining (NJ) phylogenetic relationship. All of seven F. deltoidea varieties formed a monophyletic group with moderate bootstrap support. They were grouped in a major clade with F. oleifolia as a sister taxa to the clade. The broad-leaves varieties; F. deltoidea var. kunstleri, F. deltoidea var. bilobata (FD14) and F. deltoidea var. trengganuences showed a closer genetic relationship than narrow-laef group; F. deltoidea var. angustifolia and F. deltoidea var. bilobata (FD13). F. deltoidea var. bilobata was found to be polyphyletic because it was clustered into two different sub-clades. F. deltoidea var. intermedia was clustered with the F. deltoidea complex than with F. oleifolia, indicating its strong association with the complex than as a subspecies of F. oleifolia. The molecular systematics results agreed that classification of F. deltoidea complex in section Frustescentiae but did not support the newly introduced subspecies classification. Therefore, further taxanomic revision based on combination of molecular and morphology findings should be performed.
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