India’s Oldest Living Trees

• Parijaat Tree | Kintoor | Barabanki | Uttar Pradesh | radiocarbon dating | 793 ± 37 BP | means around 800 years old | trunk perimeter (50 feet) | height (45 feet) |
• Baobab Tree | Jhusi | Allahabad | Uttar Pradesh | radiocarbon dating | 779 ± 41 BP | means around 800 years old | known as ‘Baba Shaik Ped’ or ‘Hathi ka Pawn’ | a Sufi saint Shaik Taqi believed to have planted it.
• Pillalamarri | a banyan tree | considered 700+ years old | Mahbubnagar | Telangana | canopy covers around 3 acres |
• The Siddhvari | a banyan tree | radiocarbon dating | 450 to 500 years old | near Narora atomic power plant | Bulandshahr | oldest dated banyan tree in world so far | 10^th largest banyan tree in the world | with canopy stretching over 4,069 square metres | base circumference 10 m | 27 m tall.
• Kantharpur Banyan Tree | believed to be 500-year-old | Gandhinagar | Gujarat | also known as ‘Mini Kabirvad’ | canopy/area of the tree covers half an acre.
• Baobab Tree | believed to be 500 years old | Devadurga Town | Raichur District | Chhattisgarh | 45 feet wide | 40 feet high.
• Adyar Banyan Tree |believed to be 450+ years old | Adyar | Chennai | Theosophical Society at Adyar | prop roots spread across 65,000 sq. feet | main trunk lost to a gale (1989) | locally known as the Adyar Aala maram, or the Adyar Bodhi tree.  
• The Great Banyan Tree | 350+ years old | Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden | Howrah | near Kolkata | with 3700+ aerial roots | covers 4.67 acres of land (18,918 square meters).
• Ajara Banyan Tree | believed to be 300-year-old | Shirsangi Village | Ajara Tehsil | Kolhapur | Maharashtra | spread over one and a half acres.
• The Thimmamma Marrimanu | the old banyan tree | Anantpur | Andhra Pradesh | in the Guinness Book of World Records | for the greatest perimeter length for a tree | canopy of the tree covers an area of 4.721 acres | or 25,000 sq. m. | with 1200 prop roots | believed to be planted in 16^th Century.
• The Kabirvad Banyan Tree | on a small Narmada River Island | near Bharuch | Gujarat | dedicated to Saint Kabir | canopy covers 17,520 sq. m. | or occupies an area of around 3 Kms.  
• Akkalkot Banyan Tree | Akkalkot | Solapur District | Maharashtra | Swami Samarth Maharaj used to sit under it and meditate and preach the followers for 21 years (1779 to 1800).
• Kaldia River Banyan Tree | believed to be 208 years old | Jalikata | Balaji District | Assam | canopy covers over 4 bighas.

Kintoor’s Parijat tree and Jhusi’s Baobab tree | oldest living Baobab trees outside Africa.

Banyan Tree

• India’s national tree | Ficus Benghalensis.
• Called as ‘Kalpavriksha’ | or wish-fulfilling trees.
• Considered sacred by the Hindus.
• With mythological, religious and spiritual themes around it.
• Sacred to plant around homes and temples.
• Symbolize a life’s sustainability, energy, fertility and its eternity.