Boy stands inside a giant strangler fig, Ficus aurea.
A boy stands inside a giant strangler fig, Ficus aurea, La Amistad National Park, Costa Rica. The host tree is dead and decomposed so the central core is hollow - such a strangler is known as a "columnar tree" - but the fig tree remains. These trees are hemiepiphytic because they start as epiphytes high in a host but their roots grow down to the soil and the strangler then surrounds its host.
Size: 5150px × 3447px
Photo credit: © Martin Shields / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: Yes
Keywords: adventitious, aurea, big, columnar, ficus, fig, giant, gigantic, hemiepiphyte, hemiepiphytic, huge, large, massive, parasite, parasitic, parasitism, person, roots, strangler, tree, tropical, view
