banyan trees

We enjoyed looking at the rich vegetation in Hawaii. I think what the most interesting were the banyan trees. The trees have long vines (which are really aerial roots). It took a few days, but we began to realize that these vines settle into the ground and become part of the tree, like little mini trunks.  This process can allow the trees to get fairly large.  We read about (but did not see) a banyan tree in hawaii that takes up an entire city block! The ones we saw were pretty big too, and as you can see from the post below, great for playing tarzan! (Go Scott!).

When  I looked up banyan trees on the internet I learned that the banyan tree is considered sacred and represents eternal life. I also learned its sap and roots are good for treating external skin inflammations and bruising along with skin ulcers, dysentery, and toothaches, and the bark and seeds are used to treat patients with diabetes.