Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know that there are good and bad ficuses, and that the right one is benjamina, but unfortunately no one wants to put the scientific name on the plants they sell. Rar. Do the two kinds look similar? I can find pics of benjamina on the internet, but I don't know what the other kind is to compare.

I don't know exactly how to tell the different types of ficus apart. If you go to Lowes or Home Depot and buy a ficus, and it looks like your everyday ficus, I can almost guarentee you that it is benjamina. I doubt you could find much else different without going to a greenhouse. However, I've never been a big fan of ficus. The ones you buy in the store are raised outside, so when you bring them inside, they drop most of their leaves, even if you stick them under six 48" fluorescent day glow bulbs. For me they just get to be a big ugly bundle of sticks with a few leaves. They can also give your Chameleon an eye infection (although I have never had this happen, I've read that it's quite possible.)

I prefer umbrella plants, pothos, and sweedish ivy. They all thrive under grow lights, and tolerate the chameleons munching on them every once and a while. Here's the plant list I used last time I went out looking for plants, hopefully it will help:

http://home.att.net/~chameleons/safeplants.html
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1.1.0 Sunburst Veileds (Oscar and Lizzie)
1.1.0 Azureus darts
2.3.0 Mantids
1.0.0 Albino Pacman (Grumpy)
2.0.0 White's Tree Frogs
0.2.0 Cats (Oreo and Doodle)

Thanks FrogGuy. I did in fact get a ficus from the home depot. It's quite the sorry specimen. But it's big enough to fill up the extra space in my cage. When my umbrella gets big enough, I'll probably take out the ficus and use it for outdoor basking (in a cage of course) or something.

If you go to Lowes, you can get excelent umbrella plants in 8-10" pots with 4 shoots for about 8 bucks if you don't want to wait for the one you have now to get bigger. Lowes is an excelent source for inexpensive Chameleon plants.
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1.1.0 Sunburst Veileds (Oscar and Lizzie)
1.1.0 Azureus darts
2.3.0 Mantids
1.0.0 Albino Pacman (Grumpy)
2.0.0 White's Tree Frogs
0.2.0 Cats (Oreo and Doodle)