Ficus verruculosa
The water fig is a multi-stemmed wetland shrub found across tropical and southern Africa. It usually stands 0.2–2 m tall, forming low, creeping thickets in sedge swamps, floodplains and on stream banks, and occasionally grows into a small tree up to 12 m. Unusually for a fig, it wants full sun and permanently wet roots, which makes it a good bog-garden or pond-margin plant.
Where it grows wild
It is always found near water. Collectors record it in sedge and papyrus swamps, marshes and pans, flooded grassland, creek banks and gallery forest edges, from the Okavango to Rwanda and Cameroon. The surrounding country is savanna or Brachystegia woodland, with a long dry season.
GBIF specimens run from near sea level to about 1800 m, with a median around 1150 m. That reflects the many records from the plateau country of Zambia, Burundi, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
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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 CC0 licence, unmodified.