Tis Flowering Season!

Tis the season to be flowering and what jolly big flowers they are too!  The flowers are the size of a saucer, measuring up to 15cm across.  They have delicate white waxy petals which pull up like a lady's skirt when curtseying for the queen!  They open as the sun sets and within 20 minutes are fully dilated, so you can literally watch them as they open. The blossoms stay alive for just 24 hours so by the time the sun sets the next day the flowers are spent. Baobabs in South Africa flower have their peak flowering season in November and range in number from 10 flowers per tree to up to a thousand flowers per tree at a time!  Dr. Sarah Venter has spent two years studying the flowering baobabs making notes on variation between seasons, trees and landscapes in which the trees occur.  But aren't they just exquisitely beautiful?

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Two Africans on life and Baobabs in Africa

Two Africans on life and Baobabs in Africa

Watch this: Koffi Bepe, a young Gabonese engineering student wanted to know more about the commercial value of African Baobabs. Through the African Baobab Alliance website he ended up interviewing one of their founding members; South African baobab specialist Dr Sarah Venter, for his quirky, down to earth podcast, ‘Last Week Review”. What follows is […]

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A smelly potion to protect Baobabs at Mapungubwe

A smelly potion to protect Baobabs at Mapungubwe

A new method to help protect Baobabs from elephant damage at Mapungubwe has been suggested, hold your breath, it contains fermented elephant dung! Mapungubwe is one of South Africa’s national parks in the far north, bordering onto Zimbabwe and Botswana along the Limpopo River, well-known for its many beautiful Baobab trees dotting the typical rocky […]

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Fantastic foster parents for baby Baobabs

Fantastic foster parents for baby Baobabs

Baobab wilding is about enrichment-planting of baobabs back into the wild.  To prepare for this we are growing baobab trees from seed. Some are in dr Sarah Venter’s nursery at EcoProducts and other trees are being grown by community members in villages around Venda, oftentimes with precious available water in the arid environments where Baobabs […]

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