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VIII. Account of the Banyan-Tree, or Ficus Indica, as found in the ancient Greek and Roman Authors. By George Henry Noehden, LL.D. Secretary R.A.S. F.R.S. &c.

Read March 6, 1824.

Among the objects of Natural History, which attracted the attention, and excited the wonder of the followers of Alexander the Great, when that illustrious conqueror carried his victorious arms across the Indus, was the

Banyan, or Indian Fig-tree. It is well known that that extraordinary man, whose talents, as well as achievements, have certainly no parallel in history, was generally imbued with a love of science, and, as Pliny expresses it, inflamed with a passion for Natural History.^[1] To his great preceptor, Aristotle, he had delegated the care of digesting, and elucidating, the vast materials that were collected, in the king’s progress through a quarter of the globe, which, to the inhabitants of Europe, was absolutely a new world. It is to be presumed that, by the orders of Alexander, not only specimens of natural productions were looked for, but that observations were also made, on the spot, by competent persons, on such objects as could not be removed. Both the one and the other were placed at the disposal of Aristotle, who by dint of his powerful mind, and with the assistance of an immense fund of knowledge, brought the rude materials, furnished to him, into a system of scientific arrangement. According to Pliny, as

↑ Pliny speaks, in particular, of one branch of natural history, namely, zoology, in the cultivation of which, he says, Alexander had taken a warm interest: but no remarkable object could be indifferent to such a mind. Nat. Hist. VIII. 17. Vol. II. p. 79. ed. Bip. Alexandro Magno rege inflammato cupidine animalium naturas noscendi, delegatdque hac commentatione Aristoteli, summo in omni doctrind viro, aliquot millia hominum in totius Asie Graecieque tractu parere jussa, omnium quos venatus, ancupia, piscatusque alebant: quibusque vivaria, armenta, piscine, aviaria, in curé erant: ne quid usquam gentium ignoraretur ab eo: quos percontando quinquaginta ferme volumina illa preclara de animalibus condidit. The immense sums of money, which the king, besides, bestowed upon Aristotle, for the prosecution of his researches, are mentioned by Athenzus IX. p. 398, &c. Casaub. (IX. c. 13. T. III. p.447. ed. Schweigh.) This grant of money /Elian (Var. Hist. IV. 19.) by a mistake, attributes to Philip, the father of Alexander. See Buhle in Aristotelis Vita (Vol. I. Oper. Aristotel.), p. 96; and Schlegel’s Indische Bibliothek. Vol. I. p. 160.

[1] Pliny speaks, in particular, of one branch of natural history, namely, zoology, in the cultivation of which, he says, Alexander had taken a warm interest: but no remarkable object could be indifferent to such a mind. Nat. Hist. VIII. 17. Vol. II. p. 79. ed. Bip. Alexandro Magno rege inflammato cupidine animalium naturas noscendi, delegatdque hac commentatione Aristoteli, summo in omni doctrind viro, aliquot millia hominum in totius Asie Graecieque tractu parere jussa, omnium quos venatus, ancupia, piscatusque alebant: quibusque vivaria, armenta, piscine, aviaria, in curé erant: ne quid usquam gentium ignoraretur ab eo: quos percontando quinquaginta ferme volumina illa preclara de animalibus condidit. The immense sums of money, which the king, besides, bestowed upon Aristotle, for the prosecution of his researches, are mentioned by Athenzus IX. p. 398, &c. Casaub. (IX. c. 13. T. III. p.447. ed. Schweigh.) This grant of money /Elian (Var. Hist. IV. 19.) by a mistake, attributes to Philip, the father of Alexander. See Buhle in Aristotelis Vita (Vol. I. Oper. Aristotel.), p. 96; and Schlegel’s Indische Bibliothek. Vol. I. p. 160.

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