Shrubs or trees up to 8m tall, rarely more, with trunk up to 1 m in diameter; brk brownish to greyish; latex milky white; young branches pubescent to glabrous. Leaves opposite, rarely subopposite; stipules bradly lanceolate, fully clasping the stem, about 1.5 cm long; petiole 2-7 cm long, slender, glabrous; balde 5-20 cm long, 1.5-5 cm wide, somewhat leathery, lanceolate to oblong, rarely narrowly ovate to obovate, base cuneate, margins entire, tip long acuminate, surfaces glabrou, upper surface often shiny, with 8-15 pairs of lateral veins. Figs 1-2, axillary; peduncles 2-4 mm long, puberulous; basal bracts 3, ovate, puberulous; receptacles 4-5 mm in diameter, globose, not stipitate; ostiole more or less prominent, with 3-4 ovate bracts visible from the outside.
Ficus salicifolia grows on rocks and rocky slopes, often in the crevices of bare rock, at 500-1200 m. It grows in the Saharo-montane woodlands of the Tassili n'Ajjer, the Hoggar, Aïr and Tibesti mountains, the Kerkour Nourene massif and at Elba mountain in the Red Sea Hills. It is widespread in the eastern Afrotropics, from southern Arabia and Socotra to the KwaZulu-Natal midlands of South Africa (Wikipedia 2017-02-24).
Ficus salicifolia is pollinated by a wasp, Platyscapa awekei. Two other wasps, Otitesella serrata and Ottesella pseudoserrata visit it but do not function as pollinators.
Ficus salicifolia is treated as Ficus cordata subsp. salicifolia in the Flora of Somalia.Ficus cordata has cordate leaves, has yellowish figs, and grows in western Africa.