What tree is traditionally linked to the Buddha's enlightenment?

The tree traditionally linked to the Buddha’s enlightenment is the Bodhi tree.

More precisely, the Bodhi tree is a sacred fig, Ficus religiosa, growing at Bodh Gaya in present-day Bihar, India. Buddhist tradition holds that Siddhartha Gautama meditated beneath such a tree and attained bodhi—awakening or enlightenment—before becoming the Buddha.

The original tree has not survived unchanged. Its descendants have nevertheless remained objects of pilgrimage for more than two millennia. A branch brought to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BCE became the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi at Anuradhapura, often described as the world’s oldest living human-planted flowering plant with a recorded planting tradition.

A common mix-up is treating “Bodhi tree” as the name of a separate botanical species. It is a religious and cultural name for a sacred fig, whose distinctive heart-shaped leaves have become symbols of wisdom and awakening. The sal tree is associated with other episodes in Buddhist tradition, including accounts of the Buddha’s birth and death, but not the canonical enlightenment tree.