Ficus aurea
A native strangler fig of Florida, the Caribbean and Central America. It usually starts life as a seedling high on a host tree, often in the humus on a palm trunk, then sends roots to the ground and can grow into a 30 m tree. Young plants make vigorous, sun-loving pot plants and bonsai, but mature trees need a lot of space for their aerial roots.
Where it grows wild
It grows in coastal, tropical and temperate hardwood hammocks, cabbage palm hammocks, shrublands and along watercourses in Florida. Further south it also grows in dry, deciduous, semi-evergreen and cloud forests. Seeds germinate in the canopy of a host tree, often in humus on palm leaf bases, and the young plant is a hemiepiphyte until its roots reach the soil. Mature crowns grow in full sun.
It grows from sea level to about 1800 m across its range. The Florida records used here are all near sea level; the 5 records with an elevation span -10–822 m.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app.