The Baobabs: Pachycauls of Africa, Madagascar and Australia

Front Cover
Springer Science & Business Media, Mar 2, 2008 - Science - 498 pages
Although Alexander von Humboldt never saw a baobab, he wrote: ‘Among organic creatures, this tree [Dracaena draco (dragon tree)] is undoubtedly, together with the Adansonia or baobab of Senegal, one of the oldest inhabitants of our planet’ (Humboldt 1852). With their enormous size, distinctive and often grotesque appearance, and great age (measured perhaps in thousands of years), baobab trees attract the attention of botanists, amateurs, tourists and passers-by wherever they grow. Old specimens display highly individual, photogenic characteristics which endear them to local people, artists and photographers. European knowledge of the African baobab dates back to Renaissance times. I first became acquainted with the African baobab in 1952 while working in what was then Sokoto Province, Northern Nigeria. Later I worked in the former Rhodesias (now Zambia and Zimbabwe) and in the Sudan, and was able to further my studies. Although I have written about the African baobab, it was Pat Lowe who, in January 2000, persuaded me that we should pool our knowledge and ex- riences and write a book on all eight species of this outstanding genus. While I take full responsibility for the final text, I have taken advantage of her knowledge of baobabs in Africa, Madagascar and especially Australia, and of her constructive criticism of the text.

From inside the book

Contents

Wickens_Ch01pdf
1
Wickens_Ch02pdf
31
Wickens_Ch03pdf
49
Wickens_Ch04pdf
67
Wickens_Ch05pdf
81
Wickens_Ch06pdf
101
Wickens_Ch07pdf
125
Wickens_Ch08pdf
139
Wickens_Ch13pdf
264
Wickens_Ch14pdf
307
Wickens_Ch15pdf
331
Wickens_App1pdf
337
Wickens_App2pdf
368
Wickens_App3pdf
376
Wickens_App4pdf
393
Wickens_Refspdf
397

Wickens_Ch09pdf
203
Wickens_Ch10pdf
227
Wickens_Ch11pdf
237
Wickens_Ch12pdf
245
Wickens_Taxonomic Indexespdf
453
Wickens_Subject Indexpdf
469
Wickens_Gazetteerpdf
484
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Page 428 - Geographical Historie of Africa, written in Arabicke and Italian, by John Leo, a More, borne in Granada, and brought up in Barbarie . . . Translated and collected by John Pory, late of Gonevill and Cais College.
Page 2 - When autumn came, they went ashore, wherever they might happen to be, and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut.
Page 7 - ... the country. Concerning the size of these, I may say that, at a spring near the river bank from which we drew water, there was a very great and broad tree; its height, however, was not in proportion to its size, for while we judged it to be about 20 paces high we found the girth by measurement to be about seventeen paces round the foot. It was hollow in many places, and its branches were very large so that they threw a deep shade around1. There are to be found even larger trees, so that from...
Page 451 - MUELLER.— THE ORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF PLANTS AND VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES, and their Chemical Analysis.
Page 436 - Charles-Dominique, P.; Cooper, HM; Hladik, A.; Hladik, CM; Pages, E.; Pariente, GF; Petter-Rousseaux, A.; Petter, JJ; and Schilling, A., eds.
Page 33 - There, towering over all, stands the great burly baobab, each of whose enormous arms would form the trunk of a large tree, beside groups of graceful palms, which, with their feathery-shaped leaves depicted on the sky, lend their beauty to the scene. As a hieroglyphic they always mean " far from home," for one can never get over their foreign air in a picture or landscape.
Page 234 - Endangered when it is not Critically Endangered but is facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future, as defined by any of the criteria (A to E) on page 276. VULNERABLE (VU) A taxon is Vulnerable when it is not Critically Endangered...
Page 442 - Walker, BH (1998) Carbon and nitrogen isotope discrimination and nitrogen nutrition of trees along a rainfall gradient in northern Australia.
Page 33 - ... witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.
Page 112 - ... along the surface of the ground forty or fifty yards from the trunk, also retain their vitality after the tree is laid low ; and the Portuguese now know that the best way to treat them is to let them alone, for they occupy much more room when cut down than when growing. The wood is so spongy and soft that an axe can be struck in so far with a good blow that there is great difficulty in pulling it out again. In the dead mowana mentioned the concentric rings were well seen. The average for a foot...

About the author (2008)

Pat Lowe was born in England. At the age of eleven she went to boarding school, where she suffered from chilblains and dreamed of migrating to Australia. After working as a postwoman and then spending three years as a secondary school teacher in East Africa, Pat studied psychology. In 1972 she sailed into Fremantle on a Russian ship, and became an Australian citizen as soon as she was eligible. Pat worked as a psychologist in a children's home and later in Western Australian prisons. Desert Dog won the 1998 Western Australian Premier's Children's Book Award and was a Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Book. Many of the characters in Feeling the Heat first appeared as younger characters in The Girl With No Name, published by Penguin in 1994. The Girl With No Name was shortlisted for the Multicultural Children's Literature Award and has been published in Italian.

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