Garden :: Baobabs

Photograph by Makgobokgobo

Administration have been nagging me about the landscaping around Museum of Dust. Fortunately, Xenmate, himself a keen miniature gardener, had a solution. Baobabs.

He was right. The more I looked the more I liked. Baobabs are the perfect plant. As a starter, they are leafless 9 months of the year. An Arabic legend of the baobab has it that "the devil plucked up the baobab, thrust its branches into the earth and left its roots in the air". Another legend that Administration has cruelly suggested as more apropos for MoD, is a warning against envy.

"The baobab was among the first trees to appear on the land. Next came the slender, graceful palm tree. When the baobab saw the palm tree, it cried out that it wanted to be taller. Then the beautiful flame tree appeared with its red flower and the baobab was envious for flower blossoms. When the baobab saw the magnificent fig tree, it prayed for fruit as well. The gods became angry with the tree and pulled it up by its roots, then replanted it upside down to keep it quiet."

Their fruit is called ‘monkey-bread’, and you have to love that (all words including 'monkey' are good...). In a pinch, a person could live in the trunk of one. When there’s two or more of them growing close together, they look like fat people hippy dancing. And bushbabies live in them and a bushbaby would be good company for me when Inky’s not around.

Like now.



The Baobabs were photographed by Makgobokgobo >>
General info sourced here (strangely little info about these extraordinary trees...) >>
See Xenmate’s gardening on Spy’s Spice >>