Kolkata: World's largest banyan tree damaged

Kolkata: The Amphan cyclone which hit West Bengal a day before the International Day for Biological Diversity on Friday has severely damaged the world's largest banyan tree in the Howrah botanical garden.

This cyclone has also uprooted one of the two 'kalpvriksha', having botanical name as olea cuspidata and also known as wild olive, brown olive or Indian olive, in the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden in Howrah, Allahabad-based scientist Shiv Kumar of Botanical Survey of India on Friday.

Kumar told PTI that the Howrah's botanical garden has the world's largest banyan tree aged 342 years with the circumference of its core stem once measuring 15 meter and that of its peripheral stem now measuring over 1.08 km, said Kumar.