The Baobab Tree

Can be found throughout Southern and parts of Eastern Africa, its shape is unmistakable, it looks as if it has come from a horror film production set. It is possibly the most famous tree in Africa. The trees have three things going for them; their shape, their age and the legends and history that relate to them.

In shape they were described by the famous explorer Dr. Livingstone as " That giant upturned carrot" and their more common name of the ‘Upside Down Tree’ is well deserved. The Bushmen have a charming story that says that in the beginning when the gods gave out seeds to the animals to cultivate, the Hyena, who was angry at being last in the queue, received Baobab seeds and deliberately planted them upside down.

There is much debate about exactly how old they can grow, this varies from several thousand years to five thousand years. It is extraordinary to think that when looking at one of these magnificent trees it could possibly have been alive as the Pyramids in Egypt were being built. They can grow to a very wide girth, up to 150 feet. In Tarangire, Tanzania, it is estimated that a Baobab gains 6 feet of girth for every century.

Elephants love the moisture filled bark and happily strip this off in section, creating large holes in the trees. It is not unusual to see a hollowed out trunk and these large covered spaces have been used as a bar, a prison and a toilet with bowl in the past.

The pulp has been used by man for generations to manufacture paper and this almost led to the extinction of the trees in some areas. They grow slowly and it is difficult to spot a baby baobab. There is one outside the Tarangire Tented Camp in Tanzania. The name is said to have come from Egyptian merchants trading in the 1600s with other parts of Africa, who named this tree the ‘Bu-hobab’

The fruit is rich in vitamin C and its beautiful white flowers, which bloom at night, at the start of the rains are pollinated by fruit bats.

The Marula Tree

This is the name given to a popular African liquor and the fruit is used in local beer making. But of most interest is the effect it is said to have on one particular animal.

Drunk animals, especially drunk elephants, are a rare sight, but rumor has it that elephants who will travel miles on the scent of ripe marula fruit have been known to act strangely after gorging on it. It has a quite heavy alcohol content, but not enough to tip the scales if eaten by the smaller animals, who also love the fruit. It is the quantity that elephants can consume at one sitting and the subsequent fermentation in their stomachs that can result in 'drunken' behavior.

The Sausage Tree

So named after the enormous heavy sausage-shaped fruits which hang precariously from it’s branches. Never picnic or camp under one of these trees! The sound of a falling fruit hitting the ground is a heavy thud.

The tough wood is used by local people in Botswana’s Okavango Delta to carve out as canoes or ‘mokoros’. The fruits are eaten by elephants and baboons, as well as being used by tribes to brew beer.

Yellow Fever Tree

These handsome, distinctive trees are found throughout Africa. Their name comes from the early explorers and missionaries who associated camping underneath their branches with contracting diseases, especially yellow fever. Whilst the spread and carriers of disease were little understood then, there is a grain of truth in the name as the tree tends to favor growing near water, which harbors disease carrying insects.