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/p>

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.