The fruit is very small, round, and of a dark-red; it yields oil when burnt.

When the trunk has reached an elevation of about fifteen feet, a number of small branches shoot out horizontally in all directions, and from these quantity of threadlike roots descend perpendicularly to the ground, in which they soon firmly fix themselves.

When they are sufficiently grown, they send out shoots like the parent trunk; and this process is repeated ad infinitum, so that it is easy to understand how a single tree may end by forming a whole forest, in which thousands may find a cool and shady retreat.

This tree is held sacred by the Hindoos.

They erect altars to the god Rama beneath its shade, and there, too, the Brahmin instructs his scholars.
The oldest of these two trees, together with its family, already describes a circumference of more than 600 feet, and the original trunk measures nearly fifty feet round.
Adjoining the Botanical Garden is the Bishop's College, in which the natives are trained as missionaries.