When the Angkor temples went without any type of organized maintenance for a few hundred years (from the 1200's to the 1800's), many large trees had a chance to grow up through the structures. This banyan tree is growing right out the top of a courtyard wall at Ta Prohm, and its trunk is several feet across, its age at least 200 years.
The photo to the right is part of a large pile of stone scuplture debris in the inner courtyard of Ta Prohm. Many of the other Angkor temples have been carefully restored, but Ta Prohm has been left in its natural state as an exhibit of this dramatic clash between man and nature.