Banyan

A banyan, also spelled “banian“, is a fig that begins its life as an epiphyte,i.e. a plant that grows on another plant, when its seed germinates in a crack or crevice of a host tree or edifice. “Banyan” often specifically denominates Ficus benghalensis (the “Indian banyan”), which is the national tree of the Republic of India,though the name has also been generalized to denominate all figs that share a common life cycle and used systematically in taxonomy to denominate the subgenus Urostigma.