Indian Banyan

Aerial roots drop from its limbs, thicken into props where they reach the ground, and fuse with their neighbours into a mass that a tape measure reads as one continuous trunk, which is why the girth can run to absurd lengths without the tree being especially old. Brisbane's, planted in the City Botanic Gardens during Walter Hill's curatorship in the 1870s, measures 49 metres round by two independent counts, the National Trust's and the State Library of Queensland's, and is rated the finest example of the species in Australia. Singapore's, in Tiong Bahru Park, wins on speed rather than size: NParks' own register says it was planted after the park opened in 1967, so it reached 22.8 metres of girth in under sixty years, wider than trees centuries older. Hilo has two, both protected under Hawaii's 1975 tree law: one in Kalakaua Park, 18.6 metres round, planted in 1882 by either a sheriff or a king depending which account is believed; the other left unmeasured entirely, a blank line on the state register, growing quietly along the trail past Rainbow Falls. None of the four can be aged from its girth, because the number describes a colony's width, not a stem's.