India has over 80 known species of the Ficus family of which the Banyan (Ficus Bengalensis) is the most prominent followed by the Peepal tree (Ficus religiosa).

The Banyan tree has been, for millennia, the best known tree of India. Pliny the Elder, in A.D. 70, described this tree of India as: “the tree that plants itself; it spreads out mighty arms to the earth, where in the space of a single year the arms take root and put forth anew.”

Dazzled and awestruck the Aryans ask :

“Which was the wood,
Which the tree from which
They (the Gods) shaped
Heaven and Earth?”
- Rigveda

Many millennia later, Milton writes of the Banyan:

The Banyan is known as Ficus bengalensis after the great Banyan tree in the Botanical gardens at Calcutta whose origin has been traced to undigested seeds dropped by a bird into the crown of a date palm in 1782. This tree today occupies over one and a half hectares and has a circumference of a little less than half a kilometer with 100 subsidiary trunks and 1775 prop roots. It is interesting to note that Alexander’s 7000 man army sheltered from rain under a single Banyan tree and their conceptions of “roots” and “stems” were shaken.

The distribution of Ficus trees embraces all tropical continents and islands with the exception of the Hawaii’n islands. The Banyan is a tree with a huge spread with characteristic aerial roots which upon touching and entering the earth, draws sustenance from the earth, thickens/lignifies and becomes a new trunk. The vine like aerial roots plunging down from the main limbs of the tree form a network of trunks with surface roots spreading in all direction. The leaves are leathery and oval shaped with the berry or figs emerging in pairs which are globose and ripen to a red colour. Typically the flowers – male and female and gall flowers all grow radially inwards towards the centre of the hollow berry or fig. The tree is evergreen though briefly leafless at the peak of the hot season in dry localities. The leaves are fodder for cattle, elephants and camels. In many princely states the felling of Banyans was forbidden within a mile of camping grounds as the leaves supplied elephant fodder.

The manner in which all species of the Ficus genus are pollinated is fascinating and brings into sharp focus what environmentalists and ecologists talk about when they assert that all life is interdependent. All figs species have flowers, but these are not visible as they grow radially inwards in the hollow berry. A Wasp, in most cases specific to a species of fig tree, enters the berry/fig of a Banyan tree and lays its eggs on the gall flowers. The eggs develop into larvae and in turn – wasps. These wasps find their way out of the fig through the male flowers when they are fully covered by pollen. The Wasp now goes to another fig tree of the same species, enters a fig and the cycle is renewed. Generally each fig species has a Wasp specific to it. Thus, if the figs species did not exist the wasp would not know where to lay its eggs and, in turn, if the wasp didn’t exist the figs on a ficus species would not be pollinated and therefore would have sterile seeds. The Banyan species is one of the species of fig trees which can become “strangler figs”.

The Mayans and Aztecs used barks from native strangler figs to make a kind of paper for the original Mexican codices. Thin strips of bark were pounded with a stone resulting in a sheet of paper similar to the production of papyrus by the Egyptians.

The Banyan tree has numerous uses in medicine. A fusion of Banyan seeds makes a very effective aphrodisiac and the latex from the Banyan applied externally speeds up the healing of wounds and open sores. Ayurveda has used the Banyan in medicine which assist in blood clotting. Banyans contain astringent and antiseptic properties while an infusion from the Banyan bark alleviates diabetes.