banyan

banyan (BAN-yuhn) - n., an Indian trader, merchant, cashier, or money changer; a tropical Indian fig tree (Ficus benghalensis) with many aerial roots that descend from the branches and develop into additional trunks.


The tree, which is named after the traders (from Gujarati, from Sanskrit vānija, merchant), who were supposed to often set up shop in the spreading shade, starts life as an epiphyte -- its seeds sprout in the branches of other trees, then send down roots which eventually grow to strangle and kill its host. It then keeps growing and sending down more trunks until it is a grove unto itself.


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