Donetsk, Dec 9 – DAN. An African baobab tree has successfully acclimatized in the Donetsk Republican Botanical Garden and started growing.
The Adansonia digitata, revered in Africa and Madagascar as a sacred tree, was given to the Botanical Garden as a present back in 2016, when it was a tiny sapling grown by a Donetsk resident from a fruit he brought from Africa.
“Upon successful acclimatization one of the saplings was planted in the ground in the desert and semi desert greenhouse. Currently its is 2.5 meters high,” the Garden said.
The Garden owns three samples of the tree. They have not blossomed yet, let alone bearing fruits. Experts say the baobab blossoms at the age of 200 years, making it a long wait before DPR botanists can enjoy its unusual flowers and fruits.
African baobab, a long-lived pachycaul dominates the landscapes of savannahs in sub-Saharan Africa.
They can grow to 25 m in height, and known for their trunk's girth that can reach a diameter of 10–14 m.
Some studies mention a French naturalist Michel Adanson who examined two living trees on the Magdalene Islands off Cape Verde on the coast of Senegal, and estimated them to be 5,150 years old. Scientists have been struggling to use the species in the conventional dendroclimatology, but many failed with this particular species, owing to its propensity for shrinkage and deformation. *ot
