The Tall Banyan of Hong Kong Park

Seventy metres from the thickest fig in Hong Kong Park stands a banyan with a much thinner trunk that beats it on everything else. This one is 28 metres tall, the tallest of the park's registered banyans, and its crown spreads 35 metres, the widest of them too. Its trunk is 1.78 metres across at chest height, about a metre less than its neighbour's. Height and spread, it turns out, do not follow girth. It is an Indian laurel fig, the same species as the King Banyan across the harbour in Kowloon Park. Even its paperwork differs from its neighbour: the register names the Architectural Services Department as its keeper, while the big-leaved fig beside it belongs to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which runs the park. The pair make a short stop of their own. Stand under the big-leaved fig outside the Tai Chi Garden wall, look for the taller crown 70 metres off, and you have seen two of the biggest registered trees in Central for the price of one detour. A kapok and three more registered banyans grow within the same corner of the park. The tree was inspected and recorded alive at the end of August 2026. Nobody has put an age on it; if you can, tell us.