Ficus benghalensis var. krishnae is a rare tree species considered to be endemic to India. Its peculiar feature is the presence of a cup-shaped structure at the base of its leaves. The taxonomic status of Ficus benghalensis and its variant Ficus benghalensis var. krishnae is currently under debate. In this study, we used two chloroplast DNA barcode markers (matK and rbcL) to explore the taxonomical relationship of Ficus benghalensis var. krishnae with other Ficus species.

Multiple alignments were generated using the MAFFT algorithm version 7.123b of the GUIDANCE2 web server (http://guidance.tau.ac.il/) (Sela, Ashkenazy, Katoh, & Pupko, 2015)