budding baobabs
Spring has arrived in the Limpopo with budding baobabs! The baobab trees which have been bare for most of the year are bursting into bud and leaf. The round buds which look like fruit are actually flower buds. They will still grow to three times that size over the next month before they are ready to open.
Baobabs start to flush small leaves like these a few weeks before the rains come, so its a good indication that rain is on its way. They use stem water to help these leaves grow and often the trunks shrink a bit as the growing leaves absorb the water out of the trunk. Once the rains start they absorb water from the ground to replace the stem water and so swell quickly back again to their previous size.
