Enchanted Balete Tree of Lazi

A spring rises at the roots of this tree. The water runs from the base of the trunk into a pool built in front of it, and the pool is stocked with doctor fish, which for a few extra pesos of bait will crowd round the feet of anyone who sits on the edge and lowers them in. Siquijor is the island the rest of the Philippines associates with folk healers and sorcery, so a giant fig with a spring at its feet was always going to be called enchanted. Locals have carved small shrines into the trunk. How old it is depends on who you ask, and nobody has asked the tree. Wikipedia gives 400 years and says it is believed to be the oldest and biggest balete in the province. A local guide stretches that to between 400 and 600 and admits there has been no dendrochronology. Both are tradition rather than measurement, and no one has published a girth. Its life is not in doubt. It has been photographed at the same spot in Campalanas for a decade, most recently in December 2025, and it sits on the coastal road where island tours stop as a matter of routine. Entry was 20 pesos a head in early 2026. The species is unsettled, and not narrowly. One source calls it Ficus benghalensis, the banyan; an iNaturalist observer calls it Ficus benjamina, the weeping fig. Those are very different trees. If you can tell which, tell us.