C. peltata, C. posoposa), a widely cultivated fruit tree native to the American tropics.

The genus was formerly treated as including about 20-25 species of short-lived evergreen pachycaul shrubs or small trees growing to 5–10 m tall, native to tropical Central and South America, but recent genetic evidence has resulted in all of these species other than C. papaya being reclassified into three other genera.

The genus name comes from the botanical name of the fig, Ficus carica, because of the species' leaves or fruits resemble that of it.

The carica epithet comes from Caria in southwest Anatolia (Asia Minor), Turkey, where the fig was mistakenly thought to have come from.

[1] Most of the other species have since been transferred to the genus Vasconcellea, with a few to the genera Jacaratia and Jarilla.