Along a busy road near Bengaluru grows a banyan tree so enormous that it resembles an entire grove rather than a single tree. In West Bengal, hundreds of kilometers from this location, another banyan survived its original trunk but continues to grow thanks to thousands of aerial roots.
In Telangana, majestic banyans annually attract birds, bats, and insects under their branches. In Bihar, scientists have confirmed that one banyan has existed for nearly 700 years, silently observing the change of generations.
Across India, these ancient giants are much more than just landmarks. Scientists classify mature banyans as keystone species—organisms that support entire ecosystems. Over its lifetime, one such tree can feed, provide shelter, and help sustain hundreds of birds, mammals, insects, and other living creatures.
This concept received new scientific confirmation this year. A recent study conducted in Kanya Shanti Vanam in Telangana, along with radiocarbon dating of an ancient banyan in Mundher (Bihar), reinforces long-known facts among ecologists: preserving old banyans protects a rich web of life that depends on them.
Earlier this month, it was established that the banyan in the Mundher area (Bihar) is approximately 700 years old, making it the oldest precisely dated banyan (Ficus benghalensis) to date. Unlike previous estimates based on folklore or historical records, researchers used high-precision radiocarbon dating to determine the tree's age.
This discovery is not only a milestone in tree science. It demonstrates how tropical trees can preserve centuries of ecological history while continuing to support wildlife across generations.
This role is most vividly demonstrated by the Great Banyan in Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden near Kolkata. Spreading over an area of almost 4.7 acres through more than 3700 aerial roots, this tree no longer depends on the trunk from which it originally grew. Although the original trunk died decades ago, the extensive network continues to thrive, resembling a living forest more than a single tree.
Its canopy serves as a refuge for fruit bats, palm squirrels, barbets, bulbuls, parrots, koels, mynas, and countless insects. Mosses, orchids, lichens, and other epiphytes cover its branches, creating homes for spiders, reptiles, and pollinators. Each new aerial root slightly expands this miniature ecosystem.
Dodda Alada Mara, located near Bengaluru and about 400 years old, tells a similar story. Its sprawling canopy attracts pink-crested parrots, white-cheeked barbets, jungle mynas, black drongos, and Asian koels year-round. In the evening, Indian flying foxes arrive to eat ripe figs, and then disperse their seeds across the landscape. Palm squirrels, butterflies, and bees occupy different parts of the tree simultaneously, with each relying on this living structure in different ways.
At Kanya Shanti Vanam, near Hyderabad, researchers recently got to examine these ecological connections up close. Scientists Ananthanenini Srinath and Ratinasabapati Bhuvaragasami studied six mature banyans growing among more than 1000 restored plant species, including 26 local Ficus varieties. Their research, published in International Journal of Phytology Research (2026), showed that when the banyans fruited from February to May, they became magnets for wildlife.
Common mynas, red bulbuls, Asian koels, copper-green barbets, golden orioles, rusty munias, and other animals arrived to feed. After sunset, Indian flying foxes took over, and during the day, three-striped palm squirrels fed. Unlike many forest trees that fruit only for a short time, various Ficus species fruit at different times of the year. This provides a reliable food source for wildlife throughout all seasons, helping to maintain what ecologists call trophic continuity—a continuous flow of energy in the ecosystem.
Researchers also made another important discovery. Seeds extracted from the excrement of birds and bats germinated significantly better than fruits that simply fell beneath the trees. In other words, every bird, bat, and squirrel that ate figs also helped plant the next generation of forests. Young saplings of banyan, pepal, and Indian fig were already naturally appearing in quiet corners of the reserve.
India is home to 115 registered Ficus taxa, including 89 recognized species. While many of these are widespread, others, such as Ficus beddomei, Ficus krishnae, and Ficus anamalayana, are considered rare, vulnerable, or insufficiently studied. Researchers note that protecting this biodiversity also means protecting the ecological connections built around these trees.
In Gujarat, on the Narmada River, Kabirvad supports river birds, fruit bats, macaques, and countless insects. In Andhra Pradesh, Thimma Marimanu, whose canopy spreads over an area of more than five acres, functions almost like a forest, providing habitat for parrots, owls, reptiles, butterflies, bees, and small mammals. As the oldest banyans continue to stand in the cities, villages, and forests of India, they remind us that conserving nature is not always about planting new trees. Sometimes it begins with protecting the ancient ones that have quietly sustained life for centuries.
For many people passing by the temple in Sangagiri, the banyan tree was just another tree. However, for N. Palanisamy, next to which it grew, this tree became a part of his life, from childhood games under its canopy to daily passage past it as an adult. In 2013, this tree was felled to expand the temple grounds.
Palanisamy, who is now 55 and is known locally as the 'tree driver' of Sangagiri, spoke about how deeply this loss affected him. In the same year, ecologist Dr. G. Nammalvar passed away, whose works and radio broadcasts on harmonious coexistence with nature long shaped Palanisamy's worldview.
Despite having only completed up to the 10th grade, Nammalvar's ideas remained with him even after a single meeting. The loss of the tree and the inspiration who shaped his view of nature prompted him to act within a few months. In the same year, he began planting saplings on the grounds of his old school.
To fund this initiative, Palanisamy used part of his daily income, which amounted to about 250 rupees, earned from driving an auto-rickshaw. He could have spent this money on family needs, but instead directed it towards seeds and saplings for a cause that brought him no return.
Palanisamy quickly realized that the planting process itself was only half the battle. Protective cages, bamboo supports, nets, and regular watering determined whether the young tree would survive attacks from livestock, bad weather, or neglect. A significant portion of his funds went towards this unseen maintenance work, rather than the saplings themselves. His wife, Gomathi, supported him in those early years, and he considers her encouragement vital for sustaining his efforts.
This instinct, that survival is more important than the act of planting, resonates with the challenges faced by groups distributing free saplings across India, such as an auto-rickshaw driver from Kolhapur who distributed over 8,000 saplings.
Three years later, Palanisamy's persistence attracted the attention of the Sangagiri Truck Owners Association. When they offered help, he asked not for money, but for protective cages, which ensured a constant supply of cages and free water tankers for large-scale watering.
In 2016, friends and nature lovers who followed his work on Facebook and WhatsApp formed the Pasumai Sangagiri volunteer group, which has since grown to 25 active members. Every Sunday, while most of the city rests, this group gathers at schools, along roads, near temples, and hospitals to water trees, remove weeds, and plant new saplings. This approach is similar to that of an auto-rickshaw driver from Thane who has been watering roadside trees for years using buckets he carries in his rickshaw.
Even the pandemic could not completely halt the group's activities; when planting campaigns were suspended, group members switched to disinfecting streets and residential areas. Through the nursery run by Palanisamy, Pasumai Sangagiri has distributed over 100 thousand saplings free of charge across Tamil Nadu. Volunteers have planted over 50 thousand palm seeds along lakes, ponds, and irrigation canals—a low-cost greening method similar to what a resident of Pune did, turning a parking lot into a free nursery for over 25 years.
The group also intervened to save mature trees marked for felling as part of construction projects, carefully transplanting about 10 large trees, some older than 50 years, using cranes and heavy machinery, and then monitoring their recovery. The areas of Vadugapatti and Sangagiri Model schools, which were once barren, have now transformed thanks to the group's efforts. This change reflects what environmentalists often describe as a deeper, generational value of a single surviving tree.
When asked about his greatest achievement, Palanisamy did not cite figures. Instead, he spoke of children eating fruit from the trees he once protected as saplings, and of barren patches now covered in greenery. More than ten years after losing the banyan tree that shaped his childhood, his Sundays still belong to the trees he continues to nurture.
