The Baobab tree is a strange-looking, barrel-shaped giant plant, known by many other names, including boab (Adansonia gregorii), boaboa, tabaldi (Adansonia digitata), bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris), upside-down tree, monkey bread tree, and the dead-rat tree.
Strange-looking Baobab Tree Facts: A Tree that Stores One lakh Liters of Water in its Trunks
Baobab trees are particularly known for their huge capacity to store water in their trunk. These plants can grow to enormous sizes, a big baobab tree can store up to 1 Lakh (100,000) liter (around 26,000 gallons) of water. Because of this unique characteristic, they are named the camels of the plant world.
A large baobabs tree located in Namibia considered to be the widest tree in the world, has a gigantic trunk of 87 feet in diameter. There are eight species of baobab trees are in the world, six of these are from Madagascar and the rest are from mainland Africa and Australia. These trees are abundant in the African continent, Madagascar and Australia.
It is one of the longest living plants on earth and has large flowers. The flowers begin to bloom in the evening, as they bloom very fast this can be seen with the naked eyes and it withers the next morning.
Due to the water storage capacity of the baobab tree, its biggest enemies are elephants, elephants, elands, and some other animals that chew the bark during the dry seasons. These trees are also prone to drought, waterlogging, lightning, and black fungus. However, weavers, barn owls, and mottled spinetails are nesting in their larger branches. In addition, the trees are a home for many reptiles, insects, bats, and Bucorvus (ground-hornbill roost).