One Tree, Four Acres: How an Indian Banyan Becomes a Forest

A single banyan can cover 4+ acres — what looks like a forest is often one organism with hundreds of trunks.

Thimmamma Marrimanu in Andhra Pradesh holds a Guinness record with a canopy of roughly 19,107 sq m.

Kolkata's Great Banyan lost its original main trunk in 1925 and survives on 3,000-plus prop roots.

Banyans grow downward: aerial roots harden into pillar trunks, letting the canopy spread almost indefinitely.

Many banyans begin life as stranglers, sprouting from a seed dropped by a bird high on another tree.

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