Customer Reviews

The Remarkable Baobab

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book will make a really splendid gift to anyone who loves trees. A well-printed book with really lovely pictures, it presents some of the most famous trees belonging to the genus /Adansonia/, focusing on trees as "trunks with branches". The text is well-written, and makes for a light read. Noticeable weak points are that the author's wife is in quite a few photographs although she does not take a particular good picture and that the author adopts /Adansonia_gibbosa/ as the name of the Australian baobab, instead of the better known (and now protected) /Adansonia_gregorii/ (without even explaining why he does this).

In his introduction, Pakenham notes, "[h]ere's a book bursting with ripe baobabs .... It's a personal book like its predecessors. I have scoured the world for baobabs with shapely limbs and unusual characters" (at p. 8). Here's the reality. Of the eight species of baobab, Pakenham has only seen five (missing three in Madagascar because "one of my family was ill and I was on borrowed time" (at p. 30; see also p. 8). That trip was made back in 2001, suggesting that Pakenham may have a different concept of "scouring" than the rest of us. Nor are any pictures of the three missing species offered, although a large number of the photographs in this book come from Corbis (see p. 142), with one illustrating a baobab in the Comoros (at pp. [122]-[23]), an archipelago that Pakenham does not appear to have visited, while another picture prominently features a non-baobab (at pp. [122]-[23]). This volume appears to be an offshoot of the author's Remarkable Trees of the World (2002), although there is evidence that Pakenham has incorporated materials from recent trips to St. Croix (see p. 127) and South Africa (see pp. 14, 97, 134). Why did he not return to Madagascar when this meant leaving almost 40% of the world's baobab species uncovered?

The photographs of baobabs included in the book will mesmerize most readers; the trees are worthy subjects, and between his own photos, Corbis, Kew, and his British publisher, Pakenham has put together a wonderful collection of pictures. Those of us who have seen baobabs - my own first experience was in the Mozambique bush - find them unforgettable, and this excitement has been conveyed to potential readers. Fewer, though, will find all of Pakenham's chatty comments attractive. His description of his companion at Leydsdorp (apparently his wife- see the photograph at p. 94) as a "slip of a girl" (at p. 97), for example, seems a bit too much.

The author does, however, have the gift of a light touch, and is able to convey a mass of information about the trees to his readers. Several facts were new and interesting to me although I researched the topic over a quarter of as century ago at Yale. These included the pods' appearance in Cairo markets in the 16th century (at p.13) and the 15th and 16th century graffiti found by Adanson on baobabs in Senegal in the 1750's (at p. 55). Herbert Basedow, who investigated a baobab in Australia in 1916, found bleached bones and a skull with a bullet hole (at p. 117), but Pakenham has no reference to the explorer in his bibliography (at p. 137; the information may come from Pat Lowe's The Boab Tree (1998), which is listed). Equally interesting is the probable importation of the tree to the Caribbean by black slaves (see pp. 127-28) and the legend that a hollow in the tree, opening at the full moon, would lead children back to Africa (at p. 131). The "upside-down" nature of the tree is explained in several stories (see p. 14)- a version not given by Pakenham states that the Creator replanted the tree in disgust, with its roots sticking out, after it had complained several times about its surroundings and had been duly replanted. The author does a good job of describing both the baobab's utility to native cultures and the uses to which it has been put by colonists. Not only can one pound a nail into the trunk without a hammer (see p. 13), but I can personally testify that a sharp twig can pierce the trunk. It is unfortunate that the distribution of species given (at p. 139) is not accompanied by a map.

In sum, The Remarkable Baobab is a flawed, but ultimately fascinating, discussion of one of the world's arboreal wonders. One can but hope that other works will appear which deal more thoroughly with this genus.

Samuel Pyeatt Menefee

I've seen baobabs in Madagascar, the Comoros, and Tanzania. They're impressive trees that leave a lasting impression on a wondering foreigner. I am not surprised that Thomas Pakenham found them fascinating and seems to have travelled around to various parts of the world to photograph them. You can learn
a fair bit about these amazing trees from the resulting book, but I think the lasting impression will be from the photographs, which are wonderful--both the full ones and the zoomed-in ones. It seems to me that there are other books, perhaps neither so light nor so easy to read, which would give far more botanical, historical or anthropological information. The present volume would rank more as a coffee table book or as an introduction to a very interesting and visually-fascinating subject. I believe that THE REMARKABLE BAOBAB was written in somewhat of a hurry since a number of pieces of information occur several times. No matter, if you have any sense of marvel or whimsy, you can't help but enjoy Pakenham's work.

And I love them, too. Pakenham delivers ... wonderful photographic portraits of many baobabs combines with 'tree tales' ... his experiences, the legends, the uses- and abuses- of the "upside down tree", etc. If you love trees, you'll love this book (and, by the way, I have two others of his books, Meetings with Remarkable Trees and Remarkable Trees of the world, which are equally delightful!)

All trees are fascinating both from a biological point of view and a geometric one. But at least for this reviewer, there is no tree on Earth that holds as much fascination as the baobab. The author of this book clearly holds the same opinion, and with his commentary and the beautiful photos takes readers on a journey that they is the next best thing to the enviable journeys that the author has taken for real. One could only imagine the awesome and humbling feeling one would get standing in the presence of the baobab, with reports of the girth sometimes reaching 77 feet.

But the author also reminds us that the beautiful can also be practical, as he describes the baobab as being a "godsend to the poor": its flowers and foliage can be eaten as fresh salad, and its bark can be made into roof tiles or rope.

With six species living in Madagascar and the other two in Africa and Australia, the author gives brief explanations as to why they exist in regions thousands of miles apart. Some of these reasons are anecdotal, with the author favoring one based on the mobility of their seedpods.

The future of the baobab is probably at the same level of certainty as other flora occupying their same habitats. The author addresses its survivability in the book. Maybe the techniques of genetic engineering can assist in their survivability in environments in which they are not custom. Whatever techniques are used, it is imperative that the baobab be encouraged to flourish. Its beauty alone gives it infinite utility.

The only book i know of that focuses just on the baobabs. More of a discovery of them and their location by the writer than any scientific information or care for them. Still looking for a book that could have that info.

Great photos! Interesting to note that the author has written other books beforehand looking for "Remakable Trees of the World". It seems as though that the most remarkable is what he has found in these pages.

Note that this isn't the size of most picture coffee table books, it is somewhat smaller.

If you're a succulent collector and want to find information about raising these trees, this book is not for you. But if you like seeing great pictures and information how the native people live with them and use them for food, water and shelter it has everything you're asking for.

The Remarkable Baobab deserves no singular audience mind: it will attract attention from naturalists, armchair travel readers, botanists, and adventure readers alike. Thomas Pakenham followed in the footsteps of an 18th century French naturalist who first brought baobabs to the attention of Westerners: his travels took him to the heart of Africa, to Australia's outback, and even to Hawaii and Miami as he traces the qualities and persistence of these ancient trees. Pakenham's purpose is to convey a sense of wonder and discovery, not to provide a technical scientist's botanical reference: in this purpose he succeeds, with lively and wonderful celebratory descriptions and photos alike.