United States or Andorra ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The banian-tree with its aerial roots is indigenous to Ceylon, flourishing after its peculiar fashion in all parts of the island. At a point on the coast about half-way between Colombo and Galle, there is a grand specimen of this self-producing arboreal giant. The road passes directly through its extensive grove, beneath its dense and welcome shade, which here forms a sort of triumphal arch.
We were met beneath a giant banian-tree by the chief, who greeted us with simple dignity and led us at once to his house. The most pretentious in the village, it consisted of two rooms, built of redwood boards from California, white-washed, clean, and bare, opening through wide doors upon the broad paepae. This house, the chief insisted, was to be my home while I remained his guest in Vait-hua.
The whole plantation was shut in by a dense forest; and, close by the house, a dwarfed "Aoa," or species of banian-tree, had purposely been left twisting over the palisade, in the most grotesque manner, and thus made a pleasant shade.
One of the most remarkable objects in or near Calcutta, is the celebrated Banian-tree in the East-India Company's Botanical Garden on the banks of the Hooghly, immediately opposite Garden Reach.
Above them writhed and twisted the distorted limbs of a huge banian-tree, and below, among the gnarled roots, there was a deep, dark pit. We paused in a clear space of green turf delicately shaded by mango-trees walled in with ferns and grass and flowering bushes, and gazed into the gloom. This was forbidden ground until the French came.
Enclosing the four sides of the little banian-tree shaded park in which he stands are rows of brick, white-faced, high-jointed go-downs. Through their glassless windows great white punkahs swing back and forth with a ceaseless regularity.
Oh! it was a most enchanting scene, and I thanked God for having created such delightful spots for the use of man. Now, while we were gazing around us in silent admiration, Jack uttered an exclamation of surprise, and, pointing to an object a little to one side of us, said, "That's a banian-tree." "And what's a banian-tree?" inquired Peterkin, as we walked towards it.
"The banian-tree had blessedness after the walls fell, and it is blessedness I want; but then, I am forty-seven, and you are seventeen!" sighed Mrs. Noble, as they walked through the orange orchard to the house.
"Do you see, Polly?" "Yes, I see; but oh, I was so happy being a garden flower with the sunshine on my head, and I can't seem to care the least little bit for being a banian-tree!" "Well," said Mrs. Noble, smiling through her own tears, "I fear that God will never insist on your 'yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men' unless you desire it.
The author has seen but one other example of the banian-tree so large and fine in effect; namely, that of world-wide fame in the Botanical Garden just outside of Calcutta, under the thick foliage and branches of which a whole regiment of infantry might comfortably encamp. The age of the banian is incalculable. It multiplies itself so that it may be said in one sense to live forever.
Word Of The Day