THE BANYAN TREE. 84 
“The fig tree, not that kind for fruit renowned, 
But such, as at this day to Indians known 
In Malabar or Decan, spreads her arms, 
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 
About the mother tree, a pillar’d shade, 
High o’er arched, and echoing walks between.” 
These roots grow and become important columns of support 
to the wide and ever extending branches, many of them being 
multiform or clustered, forming 
“ Huge trunks—and each particular trunk a growth 
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine, 
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved— 
* 4  * *  *  * ga pillar’d shade.” 
Some of these root trunks are not only singularly entwined 
and twisted, but they have looped upon and attached to them 
small aerial rootlets which add a new feature unlike anything we 
had observed. Evidently little roots, in dropping down from the 
nearly horizontal branches, stopped on the way at different dis- 
tances, varying from a few inches to a foot or more, to rest and 
establish new bases of supply, and fastening, by a living growth, 
to one of the root columns of support, they have pushed out 
again into the air, and after making a further growth of a few 
inches, they have again stopped for a similar purpose, fastened 
to the same column in the same way, then pushed out again, re- 
peating the process until either the rocks are reached or they are 
absorbed and lost in the older and larger growth to which they 
have in different places adhered. 
Thig tree is situated upon a clearing a little to the east of Nas- 
sau, and a few rods from the highway which skirts the harbor. 
It is near a dwelling house known as ‘‘Thompson’s Folly”—a 
