It is often told, that French archaeologists decided to leave TaProhm in the same condition in which they found it. But this is not the full truth. In fact, the temple has been cleared from undergrowth. And the giant trees simply could not be removed without damaging the building structure, too. But indeed, they wisely decided to preserve big trees as examples of the picturesque combination of stone and wood. Maurice Glaize, Angkor’s Conservator from 1937 to 1945, called the temple of Ta Prohm "one of the most imposing and the one which had best merged with the jungle, but not yet to the point of becoming a part of it".
Most iconic images of trees on temple roofs are from Ta Prohm, it became even a movie settings. Strangler figs (Ficus virens) entangle walls with a net of small roots. The even bigger Spong tress (Tetrameles nudiflora) have less, but much bigger roots covering walls.
Ta Prohm is among the largest monuments of Angkor, but it is a flat temple on ground level, not a temple mountain. It is located one and a half kilometres east of Angkor Thom (2 km by road). The temple proper, with three concentric enclosures consisting of galleries, covers an area of more than one hectare, but the whole compound measures 65 hectares.August 2013 | Siem Reap, Cambodia