The landmark 150-year-old banyan tree was 'just about the only thing left' after Lahaina town was devastated by a deadly fire, US Senator Brian Schatz said.
was imported from India and planted in front of the Lahaina courthouse and harbor in 1873. It sprawls along the town’s Front Street, is the size of an entire city block, and stands more than 60-feet high.
For generations, the banyan tree along Lahaina town’s historic Front Street served as a gathering place, its leafy branches unfurling majestically to give shade from the Hawaiian sun. By most accounts, the sprawling tree was the heart of the oceanside community — towering more than 60 feet and anchored by multiple trunks that span nearly an acre.
"There is nothing that has made me cry more today than the thought of the Banyan Tree in my hometown of Lahaina," wrote a poster identifying herself as HawaiiDelilah on X, formerly known as Twitter.Tiffany Kidder Winn, who surveyed the damage in Lahaina on Wednesday, walked by the tree and saw hope in its charred branches. Maybe it will survive, she thought.
The enormous tree has many trunks. Aerial roots dangle from its boughs and eventually latch onto the soil to become new trunks. Branches splay out widely and become roosting places for choirs of mynah birds.
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