[1] It grows in the following countries and regions: Australia (only known from the Weipa area in Cape York, Queensland);[2] Papua New Guinea (mainland); Indonesia (Papua (province), Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Jawa, Sumatera); Timor Leste; Malaysia (Sabah, Sarawak, Peninsular Malaysia); Brunei Darussalam; Thailand; Cambodia; Vietnam; Laos; and Myanmar.

[4] In the Tonlé Sap floodplains, Combretum trifoliatum occurs frequently in the swamp forests dominated by Barringtonia acutangula and Diospyros cambodiana and in scrublands, where it can often assume a shrub form.

[3] Along the Mekong at the Pha Taem National Park, the species grows as an "extreme rheophyte", surviving up to 4 months of submergence in flood waters.

[8] The species is used in traditional medicine in Cambodia: the sap (obtained by splitting the stalk) is drunk to cure dysentery; paste of the roasted fruit is mixed with palm sugar to make balls which are then chewed for oral health; the root is part of a remedy used to treat women with gonorrhoea.

[7] Étienne Pierre Ventenat (1757-1808), French botanist described the species in his Choix de Plantes, dont la Plupart sont Cultivees dans le Jardin de Cels ..., which published over the years 1803 to 1808, with the entry for Combretum trifoliatum in the 1804 publication.