Traveling in Florida years ago, I saw a strangler fig for the first time. The notion made me a little queasy: a plant that wraps itself around a tree and smothers it.

Australia has so many examples of the struggle for existence: “nature, red in tooth and claw.” There’s sharks, crocodiles, venomous snakes, deadly jellyfish, and poisonous spiders. Bad news for humans. The bad news for trees is, the country is full of strangler figs.

A strangler fig begins life as a seed sprouting high up in the crotch of a tree. Roots grow downward, wrapping themselves around the host tree until they reach the ground. Branches grow upward, reaching for sunlight. In this way, the fig gets all the benefits enjoyed by tall rainforest trees without investing energy into making a trunk.

Ultimately, the fig shades out the host tree, killing it. The host tree rots away, and all that remains is the parasite.

Up on the Atherton Tablelands behind Cairns, on the road between Malanda and Yungaburra, I ran across one of the largest strangler figs in the world. It’s called the Curtain Fig.

A thousand years ago, this strangler fig colonized a tree which died and rotted away. Having lost its support, the fig tipped over, falling onto another large tree that it colonized and ultimately killed as well.

What you see in the photos are the aerial roots and large limbs of the Curtain Fig. No trace of the original trees are visible.

The plant is a monster. A visitor standing on the right gives a sense of scale. Less than a quarter of the Curtain Fig is visible in the frame.

Many large trees were cut down when the Atherton Tablelands were cleared for agriculture. This fig survives because it grows in a patch of boulders.