The Roadside Banyan of Garden Road

The biggest banyan on this stretch of Garden Road is no longer here. The government's register of old and valuable trees still carries its entry, a trunk 2.1 metres across, with one word against it: removed. A second registered banyan on the road is marked the same way. This is the one still standing beside St. John's Building, and that alone is worth a moment on the pavement. It is an Indian laurel fig, 22 metres tall, with a trunk 1.56 metres across at chest height and a crown spreading 24 metres. Garden Road runs past the Peak Tram's lower terminus, about 150 metres from this tree, and the banyans along it are roadside trees in the full sense: no park around them, just kerb, traffic and the buildings on either side. Two more registered banyans, slightly smaller, stand about 90 metres north-east, at the junction with Lower Albert Road, both recorded alive in 2026. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department looks after it, and its last inspection, in September 2026, found it alive. The Murray's pink shower tree and the registered banyans of Hong Kong Park are all within about 270 metres. Nobody has recorded this banyan's age. If you know it, tell us.