THE LARGEST TREE - INDIA

 THE GREAT BANYAN TREE  [kolkata]

Botanical name :  Ficus benghalensis

Family :    Moraceae

Location :  Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic                           Garden, Shibpur, Howrah, near Kolkata, India

Dimensions of tree : Covers about 14,500 square meters of land (3.5 acres) height is 24 m (79 ft)

Age of plant :   Atleast 300yrs 

1} The tree survives without its main trunk, which decayed and had to be removed in 1925. A monument has been erected to the dead trunk near the tree's center, but the marker is hardly accessible to visitors, who seldom venture within the tree's thick inner tangle of roots and branches. Visitors generally prefer to access only the perimeter of the tree. 

3} The area occupied by the tree is about 18,918 square metres (about 1.89 hectares or 4.67 acres). The present crown of the tree has a circumference of 486 m. and the highest branch rises to 24.5 m; it has at present 3772 aerial roots reaching down to the ground as a prop root. Its height is almost equivalent to the Gateway of India.

4} The tree lost several prop roots when Cyclone Amphan passed through West Bengal on 20 May, 2020

Add on bonus :

 THE LARGEST TREE BY CROWN {canopy} Thimmamma Marrimanu which is also banyan tree located in Andra pradesh ,was recorded as the largest tree specimen in the world in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1989