![]() ![]() The seeds and the vitamin C-rich fruit pulp are eaten fresh, and cooking oil is extracted from the oil-rich seeds. ![]() This is the most widely used of the Malagasy baobabs. These are baobabs that are large trees with ovoid flower buds set on short, erect stalks. Adansonia grandidieri is classified in section Brevitubae with the close relative Adansonia suarezensis. The genus Adansonia is in the subfamily Bombacoideae, within the family Malvaceae in the order Malvales. The species name grandidieri honours the French botanist and explorer Alfred Grandidier (1836–1921). The genus Adansonia honours the French explorer and botanist, Michel Adanson (1727–1806). Taxonomy Īdansonia grandidieri was first described and published by botanist Henri Ernest Baillon in A.Grandidier's, Hist. It appears that the baobab overcomes this by storing water within the fibrous wood of the trunk, as the tree's diameter fluctuates with rainfall. Lack of water can sometimes be a problem for plants in Madagascar. Today, water may be the means by which the seeds are dispersed. This includes species of primates that were thought to be similar to baboons, and the heaviest bird that ever lived, the elephant bird, which had a powerful beak that could have opened large fruit. There are several species that have gone extinct since human colonization of the island (1,500 to 2,000 years ago) that could very likely have been dispersers of the seeds. In the past, however, this could have been very different. Lemurs are the only living animals on Madagascar that are capable of acting as seed dispersers, yet seed dispersal by lemurs has never been documented. ![]() Unlike the baobabs of Africa and Australia, it appears that the seeds of the tasty fruit are not dispersed by animals. The species bears ripe fruit in November and December. The lemurs move through the canopies, inserting their snouts into the white flowers and licking nectar from the petal bases, resulting in pollen being deposited in the lemurs' faces, whereas the moth is slightly more effective at pollination because it is able to fly from tree to tree with most of its body covered in pollen. The tree is pollinated by nocturnal mammals, such as fork-marked lemurs, and insects like the Hawk Moth. The flowers, said to smell of sour watermelon, open just before or soon after dusk, and all the pollen is released during the first night. The long-lived Grandidier's baobab is in leaf from October to May, and flowers between May and August. However, today it is mainly found in open, agricultural land or degraded scrubland. Grandidier's baobab used to inhabit dry, deciduous forest, especially near seasonal rivers or lakes. This baobab occurs in south-western Madagascar, between Lac Ihotry (near Morombe) and Bereboka. They contain large (12-20 mm long) kidney-shaped seeds within an edible pulp. They have a hard shell 2 – 4.5 mm thick and are covered with dense reddish-brown hairs. The fruits are large, dry and rounded to ovoid. A densely hairy ovary is enclosed in the staminal tube, and a long style tipped with a white or pinkish stigma emerges from the filaments. 600 – 700 unfused filaments up to 6.5 cm long spread out from the top of the staminal tube. The flowers have a white central tube (staminal tube) that is up to 16 mm long and is made up of fused stalks of stamens (filaments). Petals are white, aging to yellow, up to 20 mm long and about 5 times as long as broad. The lobes are fused at the base forming an open cup about 1 cm deep. The flowers are made up of 5 (sometimes 3) calyx lobes that are bent back and twisted at the base of the flower. Flowers įlowering occurs during the dry season, from May to August, before leaves appear. This is the only species of baobab with leaflets that are blueish-green and that are densely covered with star-shaped hairs. Leaves are palmately compound, typically with 9 to 11 leaflets. The crown is flat-topped, with horizontal main branches. They can reach 25 to 30 m (82 to 98 ft) in height. Grandidier's baobabs have massive, cylindrical, thick trunks, up to three meters across, covered with smooth, reddish-grey bark. This is the tree found at the Avenue of the Baobabs. This tree is endemic to the island of Madagascar, where it is an endangered species threatened by the encroachment of agricultural land. The local name is renala or reniala (from Malagasy: reny ala, meaning "mother of the forest"). ![]() It is sometimes known as Grandidier's baobab or the giant baobab. Adansonia grandidieri is the biggest and most famous of Madagascar's six species of baobabs. ![]()
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