BOAB , THE UPSIDE-DOWN TREE
BOAB, Baobab, Bottle Tree, Upside-down Tree: these are various names for an extraordinary tree growing in dry tropical conditions in parts of Africa, Madagascar and NW Australia.
They develop hugely enlarged trunks with a relatively small branch system so they could be fancifully regarded as growing upside down.
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| Bottle trees in full leaf in 'The Wet'. |
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| Multi-stemmed specimen growing in the Kimberleys. It makes Tony look positively slim! |
They are largely deciduous, shedding their leaves in the dry season. Living to a great age, surviving drought, flood and fire,they have many uses, from water storage in hollows in their trunks, to edible leaves.
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| Flowers about four inches across. |
The large white flowers produce seeds within large capsules that can be eaten if roasted or will produce an oil and the pith in which they are embedded is refreshing, slightly sharp yet sweet and highly nutritious and rich in vitamin C.
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| The seed capsules |
The fibres can be twisted into a twine for nets, and strong rope so all in all it was a hugely valuable resource for the indigenous people of the region.
One of the eight or nine species, Adansonia gregorii, is endemic in Australia and is a conspicuous feature in the plains and tropical woodlands of north west Australia.
From log Aug 11th’92
“Heading north towards Derby the country changed to Wattles and grass, then gums and grassland then to near-desert, with masses of termite mounds and scattered Boabs. We pulled off the road to stop near a massive Boab. It is a veritable giant, solitary among the sparse scrub of the Jarananga termite plain. The soil has been trampled and grazed into a dust bowl and the wind is blowing a remorseless swirl of fine silt. At some time when it was young its trunk divided near the base into three huge trunks, their smooth and polished wrinkles hold no traces of the fires droughts and floods it must have endured over the years . Passing travelers like us glad of the thin shelter it gave in the great open plain, have carved their initials and even driven nails into the trunk to give footholds to climb the sloping central trunk to give a view over the shimmering miles. This giant is supported by coiling roots making seats and hollows.
We sat out the last of the heat under its shade and later made up our swags in the open. It was bright moonlight, we didn’t need a lamp and the air was balmy.
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| Recognizable from the road north between Broome and Derby, we have even seen this tree in a feature on the telly! |
A fresh warm wind got up just before dawn. After breakfast we walked out across the plain to another enormous boab, single stemmed and like all the others we’ve seen, leafless in the drought. We spanned it: 24ft at chest height. The ground was a silky-fine dust and not a wisp of grazing to be seen. The wind was getting up all the time and the horizon was blotted out by a pall of pinkish dust blowing horizontally. We began to get a gritty feeling on our tongues.
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| Dust blow on the Jarananga Plain as we walked across next morning. |
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| Hug a tree! |
From our log: Sunday Nov.5th ’95
Back at ‘our Boab’ on the Jarananga Plain. There’s a lot more vegetation than when we were here a few years ago which then followed three years of drought. This time there was long grass!
A party of Babblers, a couple of Pee Wees, two Pied Butcherbirds and a family of Willy Wagtails were all sheltering in the cool of the root coils at the base. A pair of Red-backed Kingfishers and a Kestrel were up in the branches with Singing Honeyeaters. Quite a selection, all using one big old Boab!
We set up camp a bit away so we didn’t disturb them. and were lulled to sleep by the wind roaring in the branches.
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| Magpie Lark otherwise known as 'Pee Wee' |
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| 'Willy Wagtail' |
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| Willy Wagtail nest and seed capsule. |
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| Red-backed Kingfisher. A surprise to see kingfishers in arid regions, but they don't all look for fish! |
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| Nankeen Kestrel |
Bottle trees used as Prison Trees.
Stories are attached to this iconic tree, notably the stout old Prison Tree outside Derby.
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| The Prison Tree near Derby. It's a tourist attraction nowadays so is fenced to lessen further initial-cutting and compaction of the surrounding soil. |
With a girth of nearly 15metres this squat old tree is hollow in the centre and has long been reputed to have been used in the 1890s as a temporary lock-up for renegade Aboriginals being taken to the Court in Derby.
It was first documented in 1834 by an expedition to the area when it was noted in their journal that this tree was used as a shelter and burial place by the Indigenous People of the area and many human bones were found in it.
Another great hollow Boab grows outside Wyndham to the NE of the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia and like the Derby tree has an array of carved initials in the bark as well as it’s name the .Hillgrove Lock-up.
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| The Wyndham Prison Tree |
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| Old photo of the Wyndham Prison Tree. You can see its name 'Hillgrove Lockup' but these days all but the 'H' is grown over by the expanding bark. |
It is believed now that the story of prisoners being chained up in the tree at Derby in fact relates to the Wyndham tree, but no matter, they both attract a somewhat mordant interest.
I follow these blogs:
www.northcornwallnaturalist.blogspot.com
Interesting, as ever.
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