Strangler Fig

A Ficus genus and has a common "strangling" growth habit that is found in many tropical forest species or on the edge of mangroves swamps. Begin life as epiphytes, when their seeds, often bird-dispersed, germinate in crevices of trees.

AS in this blip, the seedling grow their roots downward and will eventually envelop the host tree while also growing upward to reach into the sunlight zone above the canopy.

An original support tree can sometimes die, so that the strangler fig becomes a "columnar tree" with a hollow central core, and home for many Australian tree dwellers; possums, cockatoos or snakes.