Where would you look for a baobab tree?

The baobab tree is to be found in tropical Africa. It is a most strange-looking tree. Its barrel-like trunk can reach 30 feet or more in diameter, although its height is not proportionately great.

It is a large gourd-like, woody, fruit containing a pleasant, cool tasting juice. A strong fibre obtained from the bark is used in Africa to make ropes and cloth. The wood is soft and light and so easy to work that the trunks of living trees are often excavated to form houses.

So peculiar is the baobab in appearance that an Arabian legend says: ‘The devil plucked up the baobab, thrust its branches into the earth, and left its roots in the air’.

A related species is found in Australia, where it is also known as the bottle tree.