Florida Beach 🏝 and Banyan Trees 🌳
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Florida Beach 🏝 and Banyan Trees 🌳

PlantsandBeyond

My parents were visiting for my birthday. What a treat. My mom and I are beach twins. Can’t get enough of this natural serenity and want to share it with the world.

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Spring Waters are cold, but I swam anyway 🙂
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Talking Head
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Another set of brave beach twins 🙂

From the Beach to the Saint Petersburg center for lunch.

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Shade is welcomed

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Banyan Trees. Roots descend from the air

Here are several nice facts were written by Mike Shanahan in 2016 for Underthebunyan .com

The banyan (Ficus benghalensis) is one of more than 750 species of fig trees, each of which is pollinated only by its own species of tiny wasps that breed only inside the figs of their partner trees.

  1. Banyans are strangler figs. They grow from seeds that land on other trees. The roots they send down smother their hosts and grow into stout, branch-supporting pillars that resemble new tree trunks.
  2. Banyans are the world’s biggest trees in terms of the area they cover. The biggest one alive today is in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It covers 1.9 hectares (4.7 acres) and can shelter 20,000 people.
  3. Banyans are ecological linchpins. They produce vast crops of figs that sustain many species of birds, fruit bats, primates and other creatures, which in turn disperse the seeds of hundreds of other plant species.
  4. The first Europeans to encounter banyan trees were Alexander the Great and his army, who reached India in 326 BCE. The notes they took back to Greece informed Theophrastus, the founder of modern botany, and — ultimately — led 17th-century English poet John Milton to write in Paradise Lost that Adam and Eve made the first clothes from banyan leaves.
  5. Hindus say a banyan tree at Jyotisar is the one Krishna stood beneath when he delivered the sermon of the Bhagavad Gita.
  6. For thousands of years, people have used banyans as sources of medicines. Today in Nepal, people use banyan leaves, bark, and roots to treat more than twenty disorders.
  7. Hindu texts written more than 2500 years ago describe a cosmic ‘world tree’, a banyan growing upside-down with its roots in the heavens. Its trunk and branches extend to Earth to bring blessings to humanity.

Great surprising facts, indeed.

Make it a serene and memorable day,💫

Luda@PlantsandBeyond.com🌿

All photographs belong to Luda @PlantsandBeyond.com

Published by PlantsandBeyond

Green Plants Based Living and Gardening

78 thoughts on “Florida Beach 🏝 and Banyan Trees 🌳”

  5. Banyan trees are majestic. Locally our folklore believe that a spirit resides in a banyan tree. To chop it down, requires Chinese rites. Also Banyan tree roots are destructive and can cause property damage. I love your photos. The beach is so gorgeous😃

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  17. Geeezzzzzz!!! You guys are such BEACH-BANAYAN-BUMS!!! 😄😎 Sorta puts my cow-tipping adventures to shame. 😟 Yee-HAW!!! (takes out his 6-shooters and unloads all 15-rounds of ammo into the sky, then spits his chew out on a crickets head!)

    …

    Then a big turkey-vulture falls to the ground in front of the Cowboy who can’t count. 😶

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  18. L~ Your pictures of the beach and trees are beautiful. The hues of blues are just mesmerizing to me. And the information on the banyan so interesting. Thank you! What I find so ironic, is in most other countries, they revel the fig tree and have found wonderful medicinal purpose for it. But here in America…… we add corn syrup and sugar to it and wrap it in additional carbohydrates and call it a Fig Neuton….and then market it as a more “healthy” snack !!! Brilliant ! We do have a lot to learn here, don’t we?!? LOL!

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  19. What a beautiful beach and what a way to spend your birthday.. Seems our birthdays must be close mine was yesterday 😀
    Those Trees are spectacular.. Love them..
    A Belated Happy Birthday and ENJOY.. 🙂 ❤

    Liked by 2 people

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  22. Wow!!! I had no idea about those trees! Incredible. I could easily write a novel based on them. OMG! The wheels are turning in my head. 😮😀

    Happy Birthday, BTW! Thank you for sharing those lovely pictures. I would love to live by the water. It’s a dream for me. I’d be there everyday!

    Wonderful post. I must say it is quite lovely to read this when you’re stressed. I found it calming.

    Thank you. Peace and hugs to you! 😊

    Liked by 3 people

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    1. Oh, my Goodness. Thank you for such inspirational feedback, Mel. I was so happy to read your reply and grateful that the visuals provided some form of relief. Wow. Peace and hugs back to you and you will be near water some day for sure.

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  24. What a vacation, Florida is beautiful…I’ve only been once but it was lovely when I went. You took some great pictures and what interesting facts about those trees, and I thought Elm trees gave off plenty of shade.

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  26. Nice to spend birthday with parents ! Enjoyed reading facts on banyan tree !! By the way, we, Indians, call banyan tree as Kalpavriksha, meaning wish-fulfilling tree and this tree is also being considered divine & immortal.

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