5/5 Rahul H. 4 years ago on Google
The Great
Banyan is
a banyan tree
(Ficus
benghalensis)
located
in Acharya
Jagadish
Chandra
Bose
Indian
Botanic
Garden, Howrah,
near Kolkata,
India.[1] The
great
banyan
tree
draws
more
visitors
to
the
garden
than
its
collection
of
exotic
plants
from
five
continents.
Its
main
trunk
became
diseased
after
it
was
struck
by
two
cyclones,
so
in
1925
the
main
trunk
of
the
tree
was
amputated
to
keep
the
remainder
healthy;
this
has
left
it
as
a clonal
colony,
rather
than
a
single
tree.
A
330-metre-long
(1,080 ft)
road
was
built
around
its
circumference,
but
the
tree
continues
to
spread
beyond
it.
The
Great
Banyan
tree
is
believed
to
be
at
least
250
years
old,
and
has
been
referenced
in
many
travel
books,
going
back
to
at
least
the
nineteenth
century.
Early
travel
writers
found
it
to
be
noteworthy
due
to
its
large
size
and
its
unusually
high
number
of
prop-trunks.
It
has
survived
two
great
cyclones
in
1864
and
1867,
when
some
of
its
main
branches
were
broken.
With
its
large
number
of aerial
roots,
which
grow
from
the
branches
and
run
vertically
to
the
ground,
The
Great
Banyan
is
said
to
appear
more
like
a
dense
forest
than
as
an
individual
tree.
The
tree
survives
without
its
main
trunk,
which
decayed
and
had
to
be
removed
in
1925.
A
monument
has
been
erected
to
the
dead
trunk
near
the
tree's
center,
but
the
marker
is
hardly
accessible
to
visitors,
who
seldom
venture
within
the
tree's
thick
inner
tangle
of
roots
and
branches.
Visitors
generally
prefer
to
access
only
the
perimeter
of
the
tree.
The
area
occupied
by
the
tree
is
about
18,918
square
metres
(about
1.89 hectares or
4.67 acres).
The
present
crown
of
the
tree
has
a
circumference
of
486
m.
and
the
highest
branch
rises
to
24.5
m;
it
has
at
present
3772
aerial
roots
reaching
down
to
the
ground
as
a
prop
root.
Its
height
is
almost
equivalent
to
the Gateway
of
India.
