One banyan tree may look like a whole grove of trees, for a banyan has many trunks. A single tree may have more than a thousand.
The banyan is found in southern Asia and other tropical lands. It belongs to the same family as the fig and the mulberry.
As a rule, a banyan tree begins its life in the top of another tree. The banyan has bright red fruits that look like cherries. Birds and monkeys and fruit bats eat them. One of these animals may leave the seed of a fruit in the top of a palm tree. The seed sprouts. The baby tree sends a root down into the ground. Soon more roots grow down around the palm tree. The little banyan branches out fast.
At last the palm tree dies and rots away. But by this time the banyan does not need the palm tree to hold it up.
As the banyan keeps on growing, roots grow down from its branches. They prop up the branches and carry water and minerals to the leaves. They grow to be trunks. The trunks of a big banyan tree in India were once measured. The biggest trunk was 13 feet across. There were 230 trunks between 2 and 3 feet across. There were 3,000 smaller trunks. Seven thousand people could stand under this one tree.
