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panying illustration indicates, this specimen is beginning to show 
plainly the growth of the large aerial roots which make this tree 
an object of wonder to travelers ; but it can, of course, but faintly 
suggest its magnificent appearance in its native home along the 
lower reaches of the Himalayas and the Dekhan peninsula. 
There are many other trees which attain the height of the banyan 
tree, but the latter is remarkable for the great spread of its 
branches, which extend horizontally and send down roots which 
eventually reach the ground ; and many of these, increasing greatly 
in diameter, form subsidiary trunks, so that the final effect is 
more that : a small grove than of a single tree. 
The size to which this tree grows in its native wilds is not defi- 
size in a state of cultivation. There was a specimen growing at 
Satara in 1882, said to have an average diameter of five hundred 
and twenty feet in the spread of its branches, and a girth of over 
fifteen hundred feet. This mere statement, perhaps, does not 
convey an adequate idea of its magnificent proportions; but 
think of such a tree as not only entirely filling the house in which 
the conservatory specimen is located, but of covering an area 
with a diameter equal to the entire length of the conservatory 
range! One has perhaps heard the statement that a banyan tree 
could shelter under its branches an army of twenty thousand 
men ; the tree at Satara would furnish shelter for over fifty thou- 
sand men, allowing four square feet for each man. 
Another remarkable specimen, somewhat smaller than the one 
at Satara, is in the botanical garden at Calcutta, and is about one 
hundred and twenty-five years old. It was described some years 
ago by Dr. King, who gave the girth of the main trunk as forty- 
two feet, the circumference of the leafy crown as eight hundred 
dred and thirty-two. It originated about 1782 from a seed 
dropped in the crown of a date-palm, presumably by some bird, 
a common method of dissemination of this and other similar trees. 
Following its usual custom, it grew vigorously, tightly encom- 
passing the sheltering and supporting palm with its roots, and 
finally cueing it, taking the place of its foster parent in the 
vegetable w 
