🇺🇸The strangler fig trees are species whose seeds, germinated on tree branches after being transported by the wind or an animal, begin their vegetative life as epiphytes, although they only use their host as a support, not as food sustenance. As they grow, they develop long aerial roots that embrace the tree on their way to the ground. Eventually, they strangle and kill the host in their attempt to reach sunlight, which is quite scarce in the understory of the rainforest vegetation that is the

THE STRANGLER FIG Perhaps the most famous hemiepiphyte is the towering strangler fig tree which starts life as Strangler Fig, Brazil 1999 a tiny seed in the canopy. The roots grow down to the forest floor where they take root and begin to take nutrients from the soil. Gradually the roots wrap around the host tree, widen, and slowly form a lattice-work that surrounds the host's trunk. The fig's crown grows foliage which soon overshadows the tree. Eventually, the host tree dies leaving the fig wit