As a child, I spent a good deal of time in Gulfport, where my father owned and operated a little pizzeria on 22nd Avenue South. Stetson University College of Law, just a couple of miles away, lured my gaze on many a car ride down Pasadena Avenue, not for the school’s stately beauty but because of the campus’ weirdly multiplicitous trees.

I learned from my sister that they were known as banyan trees, part of the fig (ficus) family and nicknamed “strangler figs.” Banyans’ trunks, to me, resembled several little tree children huddling under the green skirt of one gigantic tree lady — or, more simply, a giant Alien-like glob of greenery.

How do banyans grow? They start out latching onto the trunks of hosts — palms, oaks and even, occasionally, on buildings. Birds drop seeds that dispatch aerial roots that “strangle” the host tree trunks, spreading branches that send roots down like strands of spaghetti. Once they reach the ground they burrow and reinforce the branches and become trunk-like in appearance.

Thomas Alva Edison planted the first banyan tree in America in 1925 at his estate in Fort Myers, a landmark still open to the public. The tree was a gift from Harvey Firestone, who brought it from India because Edison and Henry Ford had been experimenting with alternative plants to produce latex for making rubber in the U.S. Edison gave 13 banyan tree specimens as a gift to John Ringling for his Sarasota estate, but the largest banyan in the continental U.S. is on the Edison property. Cypress Gardens has the second largest, the tallest is in San Diego, and the widest is in India: The Great Banyan of Calcutta sprawls out to four acres.

Typically found in tropical and subtropical Asia, banyans thrive in warm climates, ergo Florida. You can find them at Straub Park in downtown St. Pete by the Museum of Fine Arts. In fact, last year at First Night, St. Pete’s New Year’s Eve party, Pathfinder Outdoor Education (pathfinder-ed.org) used ropes and harnesses to assist revelers in ascending the largest banyan on Beach Drive.

The trees can also be found at Marina Cove Resort in St. Pete Beach, Crescent Lake Park, and Bay Pines Veterans Hospital and Cemetery. An impressive array of them still shade the grounds of Sarasota’s Ringling Museum in Sarasota.

Before trying to plant one of your own, know that the root system is invasive and destructive, known to penetrate plumbing, surging through an inground pool — and a toilet.

This article appears in May 9-15, 2013.