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