Hevea brasiliensis is a tall tropical tree, the main source of natural rubber, grown mostly for its milky latex. Its key requirements are warm, humid, frost-free conditions and steady moisture; cultivated trees are much smaller than wild ones.
Family
Euphorbiaceae (Spurge family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun
Water
Keep soil consistently moist and water regularly, especially for young trees.
Soil
Deep, well-drained, fertile soil; tolerates a range of textures.
Temperature
24–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Hard
Safety
Toxic
Native range
S. Trop. America
Climate
wet tropical
About
Hevea brasiliensis, the Pará rubber tree, sharinga tree, seringueira, or, most commonly, rubber tree or rubber plant, is a flowering plant belonging to the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It is originally native to the Amazon basin, but is now pantropical in distribution due to introductions. It is the most economically important member of the genus Hevea, because the milky latex extracted from the tree is the primary source of natural rubber.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hevea brasiliensis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.