On Ficus Trees

Banyan trees are one of my all-time favorite offerings of Mother Nature. Once they get large enough, they provide great shade, light play through the leaves and aerial roots, and a playground for tree climbers. They are a type of ficus. Ficus trees tend to crack walls and destroy foundations in Florida. The common fig, on which luscious figs grow; the Cuban laurel, a vigorous destroyer of sidewalks; and rubber tree plants are all types of ficus.

I am happy to report that Xiamen is practically covered in ficus trees.

They are planted every five feet right in the sidewalks, but don't appear to cause much damage, if any. The sidewalks are made up of concrete tiles, so perhaps as the trees grow, a ring of tiles are removed to make way for the expanding roots.

Or perhaps, as with older housing, older towns, and beautiful flower arrangements, the government simply replaces the trees with something new. I like the notion that the ficus trees grow differently here - just another small piece of our universe's underlying mechanics that we don't understand.

Our tài jí quán class (that's Tai Chi in pinyin) is held under a beautiful banyan on the University of Xiamen campus. It is several hundred years old, which means that the University grew up around the tree! Most of the temples I have visited have some very old banyan trees growing a maze of roots over and around rocks. Gulang Yu sports some gorgeous specimens that tower over the walled gardens in which they grow. And, of course, when they are near water, ficus trees are at their best.