the Giant Banyan

At the Kolkata Botanical Gardens. What you see here is one tree! It is in the Guiness Book of Records it is so big (it covers an area of 3.9 acres and has a circumference of over 450 metres). Banyans are a type of fig which send roots down from their branches to the ground, where they take hold and grow into new trunks and gradually spread outwards. The one here looks like a forest of trees because you are literally surrounded by trunks (it has 3618 prop-roots!), but they are all one tree. The original centre trunk no longer exists though, having been removed in 1925 after it was infected with fungus following some storm damage.

the central trunk is gone but all parts of the tree itself still form one fully inter-connected organism. Unlike a broom all the new branches and trunks are genetically identical (more like if you could grow extra fingers and toes). I guess you would say the original trunk is gone but the tree is still there.

it really was amazing, one of the best things I saw in India. Although, as you can probably tell, the day I took this photo was rather torrential in precipitation!