As History Unfolds, A Tree Grows
In three paragraphs on page 81 of The Overstory, Richard Powers guides his readers through the 300-year history of the banyan tree that saved Douglas’s life when he was shot down in Vietnam.
The hallmark of a banyan tree is that it can grow an intricate system of roots and multiple trunks, expanding to become an entire grove, a “one-tree forest.”
This one was conceived when a wasp laid her eggs in the exact fig she was born to pollinate. Microscopic life flourished inside that one fig. One of the many tiny seeds that resulted later fell between the branches of another tree,
“…where sun and rain nursed…[it] past the million ways of death. It grew; its roots slipped down and encased its host. Decades passed. Centuries. War on the backs of elephants gave way to televised moon landings and hydrogen bombs.”
