Baobabs

Baobabs

Baobabs

Introduction
I. Description
A. Flower
B. Fruit
C. Leaves
II. Growth
D. Characteristics of growth
1. Age
E. Distribution
III. Uses
F. Food
G. Establishments
H. Others
IV. Legends
Conclusion

Introduction

When I read the story of the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry,I got impressed by it for many reasons, one of them is when they talk about the baobabs; those incredible and giant trees. At first, I though they were fictitious, but then, I started to investigate, and I discovered that they really exist. Baobabs are one of the most spectacular trees in the whole world not only by its size, but also by all the properties and benefits that they provide.Baobabs
The baobab it’s a tree from the specie Digitata of the genus Adansonia. It is easy to identify in the African Savannah because of its peculiar shape, it seems like a tree planted upside-down.
The Adansonia Digitata has a lot of given names some of theme are: dead-rat tree, due to the shape of the fruits; the monkey-bread tree, because its soft and dry fruit; and also cream of tartar tree,but undoubtedly, the most common is baobab.

Description
This kind of plants have, besides of an unmistakable treetop made of short and thick branches, a gross trunk where they can keep a lot of liters of water. These distinctive and large trees on the savannah have a bark layer of 5-10 cm thick, the color is a grayish brown but it can vary.
Flower
Its white flowers have the shape of a handand they are hermaphrodites. They are mostly pollinated by fruit bats and the pollination takes places at night. The large and pendulous flowers are sweetly scented. They fall in 24 hours, and when they do they become brown and smelly.

Fruit
One thing you have to know is that this tree produces a super fruit! Its size it’s from 6 to 8 inches and it has a high level of anti-oxidants; it containslike 50% more calcium than spinach plus three times the vitamin C of an orange.
This fruit it’s a hard capsule with an egg’s shape, and it’s covered of brownish yellow hairs. Inside you can find powdery and dry substance, rich in ascorbic acid, and at the center it has the seeds that are black and hard, similar to a bean.
Leaves
It is important to clarify that the baobab tree does not have anyleaf during nine months of the year, actually this it’s what make the branches look like roots. The leaves appear in late spring or early summer, and they are dropped during winter.
But dot be sad, the name of its specie, digitata, its due to the five leaflets that each leaf include seem like a hand with the five fingers.

Growth
Characteristics of growth

Some of these long-lived trees canlive for thousand years. They can reach the 25 meters height, but more important it’s that the trunk can get at 40 meter of perimeter, even though, the average is 10 meters of diameter, so the perimeter would be approximately 30 meters.
The baobabs arte solitary trees, we can find them as individuals in the savannahs of Africa mostly. It’s slow growing because the low rate of rainfall that itreceives.

Age
For many years, the age of the baobabs was estimated by speculations, mostly in literature, also was calculated its growth rate. But now, we have certain techniques that help us at this task. The most recent it’s using carbon-dating techniques and the study of the growth rings. For example, a tree wit a diameter of 10 meters may be 2000 years old.
While young, baobabs don’t seemany like their adult correlatives, they are thin, and their leaves are single and not divided like the adult tree’s leaves.

Distribution
We can find this tree mostly in the semi-arid areas at the Sahara, but also it’s found in some other places of Africa and India, always in the Savannah. Some of the countries that are privileged with this vegetation are South Africa –only on the warm areas...