Under The Banyan

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Strangler figs

What happened when Christian missionaries met Kenya’s sacred fig trees

April 11, 2018September 4, 2020 / mike shanahan / 2 Comments

768px-Ficus_natalensis,_habitus,_Manie_van_der_Schijff_BT,_a-b

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Become an eye in the sky to help scientists count orangutans

February 19, 2018April 6, 2018 / mike shanahan / Leave a comment

Male_Bornean_Orangutan_-_Big_Cheeks2 Continue reading →

See what it’s like when a strangler fig explodes with life

September 1, 2017November 16, 2017 / mike shanahan / 2 Comments

Rhinoceros hornbills eating ripe figs

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Where falling fig trees portend political change

May 17, 2017September 21, 2018 / mike shanahan / Leave a comment

Mugumo

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Amazing photo of Buddha’s head engulfed by strangler fig roots

April 28, 2017November 16, 2017 / mike shanahan / Leave a comment

Buddha-head-strangler-fig-Ficus-roots-Thailand

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Can living fig-tree bridges save lives in a changing climate?

December 5, 2016September 3, 2019 / mike shanahan / 1 Comment

By AditiVerma2193 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Why are so many strangler figs home to ghosts and goblins?

October 31, 2016October 31, 2018 / mike shanahan / Leave a comment

folk-tales_of_bengal_illustration_by_w-_goble_1912

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The orangutan, the strangler fig and the photographer — a story of entwined lives

October 19, 2016November 16, 2017 / mike shanahan / Leave a comment
Orangutan climbing the pillar root of a strangler fig (Ficus stupenda)

Tim Laman / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

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My book

I am the author of 'Ladders To Heaven: How fig trees shaped our history, fed our imaginations and can enrich our future' (Unbound, 2016). My book was published in the US and Canada as 'Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers: The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees' (Chelsea Green, 2016).
Read a summary and advance praise from: Annie Proulx, Deborah Blum, Michael Pollan, Sy Montgomery, Simran Sethi, David George Haskell and others.

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