like a lot of people and things in these islands, banyons are imports from somewhere else. in this case, india. the banyon's branches shoot off sprouts that drift down and take root into the ground forming new trunks to support more and more trunks until each tree is its own spooky little forest. there is a banyon shading courthouse square in maui planted in 1873 to remember the arrival of the missionaries on that island. it was eight feet tall when planted, and now it stands over 60 feet high with 12 trunks spanning more than 200 square feet. one time, i was in the white house chatting with a woman who worked there about the banyon. she told me that the town gardeners put a lot of effort in confining that tree to the square because otherwise it would keep on growing until the roots and branches cracked the foundation and broke the walls toppling everything in its path. in fact, the banyon's tendency to crowd out and destroy its neighbors earned it the pet name strangler fig. [laughter] here, the u.s. army museum is hunkered down amidst of the hotels built in the post 1959