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Related: About this forumAfrica's strangest trees are stranger than thought--and they're dying mysteriously
By Elizabeth PennisiJun. 11, 2018 , 11:00 AM
Africas baobab tree looks like something from a Dr. Seuss book. When young, the species (Adansonia digitata) is single-stemmed, branchless, and sports fruit that resembles giant sausages. Now, researchers report things get even weirder as the tree grows older. Over its lifetime, its roots send up several more stems in a ring, which eventually fuse to form a cavity inside big enough for bars, churches, or prisons for people, and refuges for animals seeking relief from the hot sun. The work also addresses the mystery of why so many of these strange trees are dying.
To conduct the study, researchers combed books, articles, and the internet and asked local Africans in order to locate the biggest baobabs. The team leader is a nuclear chemist who loved giant trees and had developed a way to date ancient trunks without harming them. The scientists considered baobabs a good challenge because others had said wood was difficult to determine the age of. The team dated more than 60 of the trees, revealing thatunlike most other treesthe baobab grows new trunks, instead of branches, which eventually create their giant, hollow interiors.
Some of these trees are more than 2000 years old, the team reports today in Nature Plants. But in 2011 the oldest known specimena shrine for rainmakers named Panke that sprouted about 2450 years agodied and toppled over. And now seven more of the 13 oldest trees, and five of the six biggest trees, have also died, the researchers report.
More:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/africa-s-strangest-trees-are-stranger-thought-and-they-re-dying-mysteriously
- click for image -
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XErDgEmazwM/UXZaU_h9dcI/AAAAAAAARHg/vQ6L-yml_2M/s1600/baobab+tree.jpg
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http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3dZt2N20K_k/UgMvTJmKDBI/AAAAAAAABDQ/z7lY78ZR9GM/s1600/Adansonia+grandidieri+-+Grandidier%27s+baobab+09.jpg
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Africa's strangest trees are stranger than thought--and they're dying mysteriously (Original Post)
Judi Lynn
Jun 2018
OP
Glorfindel
(9,750 posts)1. Baobab trees in Florida...
Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)4. I've seen these trees...
They're amazing.
locks
(2,012 posts)2. Thanks for this
I saw the baobob trees in Kenya; they are magnificent. I was in Paris during the Vietnam war when a great female leader said "You are destroying our beautiful green garden". Now we are destroying our beautiful green planet.
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)3. Kick and recommend for visibility
Heartbreaking.
wishstar
(5,273 posts)5. These trees can be seen in Honolulu Hawaii also
amazing