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Adansonia gregorii
Also called Australian Baobab, Baobab, Baobab Bottletree, Baobab Tree, Bottletree, Cream Of Tartar Tree, Dead Rat Tree
The boab is a deciduous tree native to northern Western Australia and the Northern Territory, known for its swollen bottle-shaped trunk that stores water. It is best grown in a warm, frost-free, seasonally dry climate with full sun and very well-drained soil.
Adansonia gregorii, commonly known as the boab and also known by a number of other names, is a tree in the family Malvaceae, endemic to the northern regions of Western Australia and the Northern Territory of Australia.
Endemic to Australia, boab occurs in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and east into the Northern Territory. It is the only baobab to occur in Australia, the others being native to Madagascar and mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. There are various theories as to how the tree got to Australia, with A. gregorii and A. digitata, its African relative, being very similar genetically.
The plant has a wide variety of uses; most parts are edible and it is the source of a number of materials. Its medicinal products and the ability to store water through dry seasons has been exploited. Aboriginal Australians obtained water from the tree, owing to its ability to store huge amounts of water; some of the oldest and largest trees can hold more than 100,000 L (22,000 imp gal; 26,000 US gal) of water in their trunks. They also use the white powder that fills the seed pods (or pith, said to taste like sherbet or cream of tartar) as a food.
African Baobab · Grandidier's Baobab · Baobab · Baobab · Baobab · Baobab
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Adansonia gregorii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
