Its crown of stubby branches over a colossal trunk earned it the name 'upside-down tree'
The baobab.
Nature · Ferns, grasses & other plants
Baobab
Deciduous tree · to 25 m · some over 1,000 years old
Adansonia digitata — Malvaceae
The African baobab is the upside-down tree: a colossal swollen trunk, bare for half the year, topped by a crown of stubby branches that look like roots held up to the sky. The trunk behaves like a giant succulent and can be up to four-fifths water, which is why the tree survives months of drought and why elephants gouge into it. Its huge white flowers open at dusk and are pollinated by bats, and its dry, tart fruit is the vitamin-rich monkey bread.
How to spot them
- ▸A vast, often bottle- or barrel-shaped trunk far out of proportion to the crown
- ▸Stubby, contorted branches in a flat-topped crown, leafless for much of the year — the 'roots in the air'
- ▸Palmately compound leaves with five to seven leaflets, hence the epithet digitata
- ▸Large pendulous white flowers with a mass of stamens, opening at dusk and lasting about a day
- ▸Woody, velvety, sausage- or gourd-shaped fruit hanging on long stalks
How to know it
The trunk behaves like a giant succulent, with as much as 80 per cent of it water
The baobab, according to Kew.
Its huge white flowers open at dusk for about a day and are pollinated chiefly by fruit bats
The baobab.
Its genus honours the French naturalist who described it in Senegal in the eighteenth century
The baobab, Adansonia, after Michel Adanson.
Its epithet means 'fingered', from the hand-shaped leaves of five to seven leaflets
Adansonia digitata.
Six of the eight species in its genus are endemic to Madagascar, and one to north-western Australia
The baobab; only Adansonia digitata is widespread in mainland Africa.
Its dry, powdery fruit pulp, called monkey bread, is exceptionally rich in vitamin C
The baobab.
Quick-fire facts
- •Kew records that baobab trunks behave like giant succulents, with up to 80 per cent of the trunk made of water
- •The genus Adansonia honours Michel Adanson, the French botanist who studied the tree in Senegal in the 1750s
- •digitata means 'fingered', from the palmate leaves of five to seven leaflets
- •Eight species are recognised: Adansonia digitata across mainland Africa, six endemic to Madagascar, and A. gregorii in northern Australia
- •Flowers open at dusk and are pollinated largely by fruit bats, with hawkmoths and bushbabies also visiting
- •The fruit pulp, monkey bread, is high in vitamin C and is now exported as a powdered superfood
- •Many baobabs are over a thousand years old; several of Africa's largest and most famous individuals collapsed in the 2010s
- •Baobabs do not form ordinary annual rings, so ages are estimated by radiocarbon dating
- •Placed in the mallow family Malvaceae, alongside cotton, hibiscus and the kapok tree
- •Kew's baobab grows in the Princess of Wales Conservatory and is pruned yearly to keep it below the roof
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Sources
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Extreme plant survivors: the baobab