The Great Banyan Tree

PM Basti, where Talimi Haq School is located, is on the Grand Trunk Road. Built in the 16th century by the ruler Sher Shah Suri, it runs from Shibpur, in Howrah, to Peshawar in Pakistan (near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border).

Very near the beginning of the Grand Trunk Road is the Indian Botanical Garden. The most famous thing in the Botanical Garden is the Great Banyan Tree (Ficus Bengalensis, family Moraceae). Its almost 250 years old. The tree is a native of India.

The Great Banyan tree draws more visitors to the Indian Botanical Garden than its collection of exotic plants from five continents, the plant houses or the special garden of bamboos, palms, succulents etc. The fruit of the banyan is like a small fig, red when ripe, but its not edible. In terms of its spread, this tree is the largest known in India, perhaps in Asia.

There is no clear history of the tree as to the time of planting etc, but it is mentioned in some travel books of the 19th century. It was damaged by two great cyclones of 1864 and 1867 when some of its main branches were broken, exposing it to the attack of a hard fungus. With its large number of aerial roots which grow from the branches and run vertically to the ground and look like so many trunks, the Great Banyan Tree looks more like a forest than an individual tree. The tree now lives in perfect vigour without its main trunk which decayed and had to be removed in 1925. The circumference of the original trunk at 1.7 m from the ground was 15.7 m. The area occupied by the tree is about 22,165 sq m and the highest branch rises to 24.5 m. It has at present 2,800 aerial roots reaching down to the ground.

The Botanical Garden - is the favourite place for an outing for Talimi Haq School!

Photo: Achinto