"Tree of Life" facing sudden deaths

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forestkeepers

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Adansonia-digitata-Baobab3-1.jpg

Baobabs have super-thick trunks and branches that look like root systems reaching for the sky. African bushmen said that when the god Thora created the world, he took a dislike to the baobab growing in his garden so he threw it out over the wall of paradise onto Earth below; it landed upside down and continued to grow that way. Others claim that Thora had to uproot the trees and replant them upside-down, because when they were initially planted the right way, they kept on walking. Tribal elders and kings used to hold meetings under baobab trees since they believed that the tree's spirits would guide them in decision-making.

On a more practical level, the baobab is known as the Tree of Life because it can store water in its enormous trunk during the rainy season and bear fruit later in the dry season, when other food is scarce. But associating them with life may be temporary; the oldest and largest among these trees are dying.
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Largest and Oldest African Baobabs are Dying
 
I've always wanted to live inside a tree ever since I read/saw "My Side Of The Mountain" as a kid. I don't want to hurt the tree, though.
 
My guess as an Arborist is Pollution ... Big old Trees can't take it. (Based on my experience with Vermont's old Sugar Maples , just opinion really ... Mebbee the total atmosphere of the Earth is messed up)
 
Your picture is of the wrong kind of Baobabs.

It is not Adansonia grandidieri that are dying, but Adansonia digitatis.

I was planning a trip to climb the Didieri when they were in full bloom, but it fell through on account of none of us speaking french.
Still, gathering information over the course of a year made me somewhat well versed in Baobab trees.:)

Speaking of Baobab trees, I just got a great present last week.

Gerry and Terri Beranek sent me a wonderful book: https://www.treegirl.org/book.html

Look at the picture of the 7 stemmed Baobab.
There is a small pale dot in the middle near the bottom.
It is a naked woman.

Now you realize just how huge that tree is.

Julianne Skai Arbor travels around the world and takes pictures of the most magnificent trees, using her naked body to show the scale of them.

There is nothing sexual about it, which is great in a time where the naked female body is used to draw attention to all kind of shit that people wnat to market.

It is simply a naked female, draped around some gigantic trees. Safe to look at for everybody, except maybe Justin:lol:

I just ordered the Baobab picture in poster size.
It will go so well with my poster of Lost Monarch and girl in a red dress that I bought from Mario last time I was in the Redwoods.

It is a fantastic book, support her work by bying it.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #10
stig said:
Your picture is of the wrong kind of Baobabs.
Click to expand...
Sorry, that was from the linked article -- I'm not an African tree expert to have doubted it! Hopefully fixed now.

Southern Africa has been suffering worsening chronic drought the past decade. Combine with rising temperatures, man-made depleting of natural water table and unceasing deforestation (and resulting desertification) ..... It isn't surprising. Very sad though, baobab trees are cool - traditionally, elephants eat the tasty bark. Sadly, wild elephants are also in terminal decline.
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Secondly, this is definitely not a cohort thing. The trees studies ranged in age from around 780 years (although that one was still doing fine) to nearly 2,500 years old. So it's not just old age. While this paper does give some new and interesting data, it's also a side research note of a larger study on baobabs. Baobabs have been a concern to ecologists for a while now - both increased mortality of mature trees and reduced emergence of young trees. So this study adds a few more data points to that concern. But the sample size of really old baobabs is pretty small - there are only a few dozen of these monsters left alive, and a recent die-off of some of the oldest and biggest, across different environments and of different ages, is really concerning.
Click to expand...
 
No worries, dude.
You just gave me an excuse to flaunt my Baobab knowledge:D

Can you imagine sleeping in a treeboat in one of those, when they bloom.
Bats, lemurs and countless moths come for the nectar.
The whole tree is full of life.

Alas, French is not one of my languages.

Want to go to Madagascar, Mick?
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #12
Parlez vous francais?
I have two years of high school French -- enough to get myself in serious trouble with a Frenchman.
 
I dont remember if you were with me when the neighbor that has the iris garden and lives in the originally owners home told me the story of when he about ran them all off as trespassers.:lol:
 

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No, I probably wasn't , otherwise I would have remembered.

I find it soo cool, that the tree made it into the book:)
 
I see and work in old , old Sugar Maples ... my guess is is the acidity of the rain (and snow). Traditional Slate Roofs in New England used to last well over a hundred years , my buddy in the business believes the acid rain beats the shit out of the Slate making it brittle long before it's scheduled.
 
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