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Trees
Nature
Personal Energy
Earth
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| Boababs
Baobab is the common name of a genus (Adansonia) containing eight species of trees, native to Madagascar (having six species),
mainland Africa and Australia (one species in each). The mainland African species also occurs on Madagascar, but it is not a
native of that country.
Other common names include boab, boaboa, bottle tree and monkey bread tree. The species reach heights of 530 m and trunk diameters
of 7-11 m. A specimen in Limpopo Province, South Africa, often considered the largest example alive, has a circumference of 50 m
and an average diameter of 15 m.
Some baobabs are reputed to be many thousands of years old, which is difficult to verify as the wood does not produce annual growth rings,
though radiocarbon dating may be able to provide age data. Few botanists believe these claims of extreme age; current evidence suggests
they rarely exceed 400 years.
Wikipedia
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