Grows in terrestrial rainforests, clearings and along roadsides, also in ravines and on steep volcanic slopes, always growing in very rich soils.

Common in the wet tropics of north-eastern Queensland. South of this region it occurs only as disjunct isolated populations, which may be relics of previous favourable climatic conditions

Occurs in Indonesia, New Guinea, coastal northern Australia and the south and west Pacific Islands. It is naturalised in Hawaii, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Cuba.