This is a Banyan Tree.

The Banyan Tree or “Strangler Fig” often begins to grow near or on an existing mature tree. As it grows, the strangler shoots out aerial “prop roots” that paratrooper themselves down until they reach the ground, root themselves, and continue to grow and expand, prop roots begetting prop roots on and on for acres, space permitting. The main trunk of the Banyan will continue to grow along and around its “host” tree until it envelopes and begins to cover it completely, choking it off from light and air. The old tree often dies and decomposes, leaving a hollow host-tree shaped hole in the center of the Banyan’s oldest trunk. The Banyan grows expansively, and decentrally but not in a way that allows for the cutesy metaphor of the rhizomatically connected Potato. It is not at all as gentle of a metaphor as the directionless network of tubers. It is essentially a parasitic, colonizing tree, that uses the structure of an existing tree to prop itself up, spread out, and kill the nearby competition for water, light, and air.