Nature struck his creatures and will crush humanity.Among the wonders of the plant one of the most amazing is the banyan tree (photo below), which is visually perceived as a forest.
Types banyan
This plant belongs to the huge ficus, and is a distant relative of the ordinary room flower.There are two varieties of it:
- Bengal banyan tree: the tree-epiphyte, in the early development is attached to other plants.Seeds fall on a tree-media with birds.The germ produces a huge number of aerial roots.The vast majority of them dries up, not grow to the ground.However, those who managed to reach it, become ordinary trunks.At the same time expanding and krona.It is this kind most often meant by the name of the banyan.
- Wood of the second type is called Ficus religiosa.This plant epiphyte is not.It also grows aerial roots that run into the ground, and supports a huge crown.This banyan tree is grown and fans of indoor gardening.At home, its height is not more than a meter or two.From such a "fig" is obtained simply amazing bonsai.
Both species are common in India, and remarkable, in addition to its original appearance, the elaboration of (using scale insects) shellac - a very valuable resin.Besides India, the individual instances of a banyan tree grows in Indonesia and China.
Why is he called
household name "banyan" tree received from the British and the Portuguese.Aliens Love noted Indian traders - banias - to rest under the branches of a huge fig tree and called him merchants (in English banias tree).Over time, the tree is lost, and there was only a "banyan".Now the name is known to many more people than the official "Ficus Bengali."
sacred significance plants
banyan tree, the forest is respected and revered by Buddhists and Hindus.The former believe that it is beneath the Buddha attained enlightenment.In Hinduism, he is a tree of Brahma and a symbol of immortality, eternal life and rebirth.Going back to the ground, he ascends to heaven - and so continuously in a circle like a wheel of Samsara.Women banyan symbolizes fertility;in ancient writings it is mentioned as the world tree.Some sources call it the tree of knowledge, so that it is possible to live under the same Adam and Eve before the Fall.Once came to him the wise men for meditation and reflection on the eternal.On top of that banyan tree - the tree symbol of India.
Note that in some tourist places in India attempted to "civilize" banyan trees.Next to them are put small churches and chapels, under the canopy equipped with benches and paths.However, most of these experiments lead the trouble for the tree, as people refer to it does not care.There are cases where, because of their barbarism of the tree, trees perished.Great Banyan even a semblance of patrolling the Environmental Police, which protects it from tourists.
largest banyan tree
What is considered a champion, arguing Bangalore, Sri Lanka and Kolkata.On the one hand, the Sri Lankan grow a plant has 350 major, strengthen and become thick trunks.A fine and he did more than three thousand.On the other hand, the great banyan tree in Calcutta has an age of 200-250 years, the height of his crown in some places reaches 25 meters and the area of the tree-grove almost half a hectare.However, in 25 of the last century in the great banyan tree was hit by lightning.It turned out to be the main trunk is split, and had to be cut.So this instance since no one can be considered a tree, it is now recognized as a clonal colony.
resort of Goa on the banyan tree has not reached such incredible sizes, but having enough to capture the imagination of visitors.All the more so here, in Arambol, grows the legendary banyan tree - the tree under which alleged once meditated using cannabis "Beatles".Although experts group several times refuted this myth (in India «Beatles» lived in Rishikesh), tourists from around the world still stubbornly believe in the legend.So fans of the group, arriving in Goa, certainly visit the cherished tree - take a picture, think about the high and mentally merge with their idols.
