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Pachypodium baronii
Pachypodium baronii, the Madagascar palm or bontaka, is a flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It has the habit of a robust shrub with a spherical or bottle-shaped trunk. It has several cylindrical branches at the top.
This plant is endemic to Madagascar, where it grows in open deciduous forest on Mesozoic calcareous rock and granite or gneiss on the western side of the island at low elevations. It is known in Madagascar as "Bontaka". It is also endemic from Befandriana Nord to Mandritsara.
Pachypodium baronii is found on three different substrate, where two are similar and one is not. It can be located on mainly steep gneiss but sometimes granite rocks (metamorphic basement) and Mesozoic calcareous rock. "metamorphic basement" means a geological complex of undifferentiated igneous and metamorphic rocks where the rocks themselves have altered their composition, texture, or internal structure through extreme heat, pressure, and the introduction of a chemical. Granite and gneiss, in this condition of being undifferentiated, tend to have an acidi pH level; whereas calcareous rock tends to be more basic. This flexibility in substrate demonstrates a less specialized geological environment. These steep rocks are often located in low open dry, xeric deciduous western forests where they take advantage of micro-environments suitable for succulents. Micro-environments means a delimited convergence of very localize landscape and climate conditions that are in stark contrast to the larger vegetative climatic environmental zone.
Pachypodium ambongense · Pachypodium bicolor · Pachypodium bispinosum · Pachypodium brevicaule · Pachypodium decaryi · Pachypodium densiflorum · Pachypodium eburneum · Madagascar Bottle Tree · Pachypodium gracilius · Pachypodium horombense · Madagascar Palm · Bottle tree
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pachypodium baronii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
