Ficus tinctoria
A small evergreen fig, often starting life as a hemiepiphyte or rooting over boulders, found from India and southern China through Malesia to northern Australia and the Pacific islands. Its small fruits give a red dye and are eaten on low atolls. It is a tough, sun-loving tree for a bright conservatory or a large bonsai-style pot.
Where it grows wild
Beach thickets, coastal rocks and limestone, and inland moist valleys and rocky slopes in open or dense forest. It often starts as an epiphyte, frequently on palms, or roots over boulders, sending roots down to the soil; it can grow into a strangler or a free-standing small tree. It fruits year-round.
Mostly lowland and coastal: the 216 records with an elevation span 0–2271 m, median 100 m. In Fiji it is recorded up to about 500 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.