Field of Science

Baobabs on the bucket list

Baobabs are remarkable trees, and TPP wants to see these badly, so they are on his plant bucket list. Note that the dopey photographer has the lizard in focus not the trees, rather a typical sort of plant near sightedness. But these trees are in Madagascar, not an easy place to visit.  The Phactors have seen some different baobabs in South Africa and the baobab like bottle trees of Queensland. But these bottle tree baobabs are just the coolest trees.  It's hard to believe these aren't a made up scifi alien tree.  These and the ones in S. Africa are species of Adansonia and while a species does occur in Australia the bottle tree there is a species of Brachychiton. The general term for trees that grow like this is pachycauly, thick stems.  For many years TPP had a fig that grew as a pachycaul and it was pruned to look like one of these baobabs. It was a pretty cool bonsai tree, just like this one from Dave's Garden. But still not quite the same.

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