Bracchium

The banyan tree on the first mile of the Pipiwai Trail is one of Maui's largest — a single organism whose aerial roots have descended and re-rooted across a sixty-foot spread, creating the appearance of a grove where there is in fact only one tree. Greg titled this image "Bracchium," the Latin for embrace, a name that describes both the tree's architecture and what it does to the light passing through it. The camera was positioned before the trail opened, in the quiet of first light before the daily convoy of rental cars arrives on the Road to Hana — the wide-angle lens chosen for the extreme spread the scene requires. Aerial roots hang at every height; the photograph required choosing which level of the canopy to prioritize.