Banyan Young Plant Stock Photography

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 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.