The latin name, Adansonia digitata, was given to the baobab by Carl Linneaus. He named the baobab after the a French naturalist Michel Adanson. Adanson was posted to Senegal in 1749 to research the natural resources of the area. He was blown away by his first sight of a baobab describing it as "a forest in itself”. This description of […] Continue Reading
Who would have thought there would be a whole week devoted to the Baobab tree in Cornwall, England? But it’s true! The Eden Project, a wonderful organisation devoted to supporting transformative social and environmental enterprises is hosting a Harvest Festival in Cornwall. http://www.edenproject.com/visit-us/whats-on/other-activities/harvest-food-festival-in-cornwall “Baobab Week” is from the 8th – 13th October. They even have a baobab tree in their […] Continue Reading
There’s a bit of a myth out there that you can tap water out of a baobab which is illustrated by this delightful cartoon. The truth is that a freshly felled baobab trunk weighs about 850kg per cubic meter. Once dried out, it weighs 200kg per cubic meter. This means that baobabs are able to store 650 litres of […] Continue Reading
I have never quite understood the appeal of bonsai, so I decided to see for myself what it was all about. I visited Lampies Schoeman who has about 100 trees, surely one of the largest collection of baobab bonsai in the world! He has grown and created most of his bonsai himself over the last 10 years. I always thought […] Continue Reading
Here are some pictures we found of how people have used the hollow spaces within a baobab tree as living spaces – there's a bar and another has even been fitted out as a toilet! One ancient hollow Baobab tree in Zimbabwe is so large that up to 40 people can shelter inside its trunk. Various Baobabs have been used […] Continue Reading
Baobabs are very difficult to kill, they can be burnt, or stripped of their bark, and they will just form new bark and carry on growing. When they do die, they simply rot from the inside and suddenly collapse, leaving a heap of fibres, which makes many people think that they don't die at all, but simply disappear! A Baby Baobab […] Continue Reading
This week I did my annual trip to Skelmwater. This is a baobab research plot situated near Musina long the N1. Skelmwater was established in 1930 by the late Professor de Villiers of Stellenbosch University. The aim was to measure the rate of growth of baobabs in their natural environment. Despite the small number of baobabs in the plot, the […] Continue Reading
How old were your parents when you were born? Not as old as the Baobab tree has to be before it's capable of bearing fruit. It can take a Baobab tree up to 200 years before it produces its first green-brown velvety pod-shaped fruit. January is when Baobabs start to fruit and fruit production is highly variable between trees. Some trees never produce […] Continue Reading
Flower and fruit production usually only takes place once a tree is a certain size. Baobab tree growth is dependent on access to water. Where trees grow in high rainfall areas (+1000mls …per year) baobabs can reach maturity much more quickly than in arid areas. We have worked out that in Venda where rainfall is 350ml per year it can […] Continue Reading
A new species of baobab, Adansonia kilima, has recently been described for Africa by Prof. Jack Pettigrew. This is significant because worldwide there are only eight species of baobab, six of them are in Madagascar, one is in Australia and one in Africa (Adansonia digitata). But what has always intrigued taxonomists is that the species that occur in Madagascar and […] Continue Reading