Pronounced ‘boy-oh-bab’, these trees are common in all semi-arid and lowland areas of the DRC and Angola and at a similar latitude north of the equator. They have very thick trunks, up to 7m wide, and their gnarled branches, leafless for 9 months of the year, look like roots – some people even call them upside-down trees. They can grow up to 25m tall and live for hundreds of years.
They have a special place in local cultures – they are used for food, to collect water and to provide shelter. Parts are used for medicine and some believe spirits live in them.
Baobab fruit (known as ‘monkey bread outside of Angola) hangs from the branches in large pods. The fruit is dried and the pulp is eaten or made into a juice and even ice cream these days. Also, as parts of the tree rot, the moist bark provides a great place for mushrooms to grow, which are then cooked in the spinach-like leaves of the tree and eaten with bush meat. Even the seeds are ground up and made into a coffee-like drink or used to thicken food. Western food nutrition experts are now claiming that the baobab fruit is a new super fruit, high in antioxidants, vitamin C, calcium. potassium and phosphorus – it probably won’t be long before baobab extracts crop up in a specialist health food store near you.
The thick, corky trunks of the baobab soak up and store thousands of litres of water during the rainy season and are a source of water for local tribes who squeeze the bark to extract it and also use hollowed-out trunks to store water during the dry season.
Although the hollowed-out trunk is occasionally used as shelter for humans, you are more likely to find bats and snakes living there. And if you believe in spirits, it’s probably best to keep well away.
Finally the baobab tree is much prized by traditional healers who use the bark, leaves and seeds to treat ailments ranging from diabetes to malaria.