Ficus superba
A strangler fig of seasonal lowland forest, coasts and rocky ground from southern India and Indochina through western Malesia. It starts life as a hemi-epiphyte or a seedling in a boulder crack, then becomes a free-standing tree. It is deciduous in a distinctive way: it may drop and regrow its whole canopy two to four times a year, each flush taking about two weeks. For collectors it is a sun-loving tree best grown as a large container specimen or bonsai in a bright, warm room or greenhouse.
Where it grows wild
It grows in lowland and hill forest, on forest edges, coastal rocks and boulder fields. Seedlings often establish on other trees or in rock crevices and send roots long distances over rock to reach soil, later strangling the host or standing alone as a single-stemmed tree. Mature trees hold their crowns in full sun.
GBIF elevations run from 5 to 1000 m with a median of 150 m, but only 7 of 101 records carry one. It is essentially a lowland tree.
🔒 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 2.5 licence, unmodified.