The Great Banyan Tree is over 250 years old
The Great Banyan Tree is over 250 years old and covers about 14,500 square meters of land (3.5 acres) in the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden near Kolkata, making it the widest tree in the world. 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. From a distance, the tree has the appearance of a forest, but what appear to be individual trees are actually aerial roots- around 3,600 of them. The original trunk measured 50′ in diameter before it was damaged in two cyclones ca. 1925, and had to be removed in order to preserve the remainder of the tree.