T. A. Edison under the Banyan Tree
In 1925, tire magnate Harvey Firestone gifted his close friend Thomas Edison a small, four-foot sapling of Ficus benghalensis—a sacred banyan native to India. Planted at Edison’s winter retreat, Seminole Lodge in Fort Myers, Florida, the tree was not merely ornamental; it was part of a critical industrial quest. During the 1920s, global…
