other tree, generally a palm, among the moist bases of whose leaves the seed carried thither by some bird which had fed upon the fig, begins to germinate.  This root branching as it descends, envelopes the trunk of the supporting tree with a network of wood, and at length penetrating the ground, attains the dimensions of a stem.  But unlike a stem it throws out no buds, leaves, or flowers; the true stem, with its branches, its foliage, and fruit, springs upwards from the crown of the tree whence the root is seen descending; and from it issue the pendulous rootlets, which, on reaching the earth, fix themselves firmly and form the marvellous growth for which the banyan is so celebrated.[2] In the depth of this grove, the original tree is incarcerated till, literally strangled by the folds and weight of its resistless companion, it dies and leaves the fig in undisturbed possession of its place.  It is not unusual in the forest to find a fig-tree which had been thus upborne till it became a standard, now forming a hollow cylinder, the centre of which was once filled by the sustaining tree:  but the empty walls form a circular network of interlaced roots and branches; firmly agglutinated under pressure, and admitting the light through interstices that look like loopholes in a turret.

[Footnote 1:  Ficus Indica.]

[Footnote 2:  I do not remember to have seen the following passage from Pliny referred to as the original of Milton’s description of this marvellous tree:—­

“Ipsa se serens, vastis diffunditur ramis:  quorum imi adeo in terram curvantur, ut annuo spatio infigantur, novamque sibi propaginem faciant circa parentem in orbem. Intra septem eam aestivant pastores, opacam pariter et munitam vallo arboris, decora specie subter intuenti, proculve, fornicato arbore.  Foliorum latitudo peltae effigiem Amazonicae habet,” &c.—­PLINY, 1. xii. c. 11.

  “The fig-tree—­not that kind for fruit renowned,
  But such as at this day to Indians known,
  In Malabar or Dekkan spreads her arms,
  Branching so broad and long, that on the ground
  The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
  About the mother tree:  a pillar’d shade
  High over arched and echoing walks between. 
  There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
  Shelters in cool and tends his pasturing flocks
  At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.  These leaves
  They gathered; broad as Amazonian targe:
  And with what skill they had, together sewed
  To gird their waist,” &c.

Par.  Lost, ix. 1100.

Pliny’s description is borrowed, with some embellishments, from
THEOPHRASTUS de.  Nat.  Plant. l. i. 7. iv. 4.]

[Illustration:  MARRIAGE OF THE FIG-TREE AND THE PALM.]

Another species of the same genus, F. repens, is a fitting representative of the English ivy, and is constantly to be seen clambering over rocks, turning through heaps of stones, or ascending some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch.