Ficus lyrata
A banyan-type fig of West African lowland rainforest, from Sierra Leone to Cameroon and Gabon. It often begins life as an epiphyte high on a host tree and becomes a strangler or free-standing tree 12–15 m or more tall, with its crown in the sun. It needs far more light than typical houseplant advice suggests, and the stalling, leaf-dropping indoor plants are usually starved of light.
Where it grows wild
Lowland rainforest and forest margins. Seeds deposited by birds or bats germinate in the crowns of host trees; the young fig lives as an epiphyte in the bright upper canopy, sends roots down to the ground and may eventually enclose the host. It also grows as a free-standing tree. Adult crowns sit in full sun; young plants grow in bright, broken canopy light rather than on the dark forest floor.
Only eight wild records carry an elevation, spanning 18–620 m (median 340 m): a lowland species.
🔒 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. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 2.0 licence, unmodified.