All branches, aerial roots and trunks in the photo belong to one 250-year-old tree. What kind of tree is it?

The photo shows a small portion of the Great Banyan tree at the Howrah Botanical Gardens in Calcutta, India. The Great Banyan of Calcutta is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest tree canopy at 18,918 square metres (about 1.89 hectares or 4.67 acres). A circumference road of 330 meters (1,080 feet) was built to surround the Great Banyan, but the tree continued to grow beyond the boundary of the road.

Banyan trees (Ficus benghalensis) are able to extend beyond their main trunk by projecting aerial roots, which grow downward toward the ground from their branches. When they reach the ground, the aerial roots form what appear to be trunks, but are actually extensions of the root system. A single large banyan can appear to be a forest, but one where all the branches are interconnected in a single canopy network.

Banyans can also survive even after the loss of their original trunk. In the case of the Great Banyan of Calcutta, the original trunk became diseased after damages brought on by two cyclones. The rotting trunk was removed in 1925, but the Great Banyan continues to spread and produce its fig-like red fruit still to this day.