G. E. Wickens
1 First published by AETFAT: Taxonomic aspects of African economic botany: G. Kunkel (ed.), 1979.
Although the baobab is the most easily recognised tree in the savannas of tropical and southern Africa, its precise distribution between the margins of the forest fringes has not been completely mapped. This present compilation is a revision of the distribution map of Lucas (1971) with the help of AETFAT members, supplemented by the map of Walter (1964). The map (Figure 1) shows an almost total encirclement of the Congo basin apart from the gap between Lake Chad and the Sudan Republic, noted by Chevalier (1906), and that between Kenya and northern Ethiopia.
Throughout its distribution the baobab plays a useful and valuable role in the economy of the local inhabitants. Practically all parts of the tree can be utilized. It provides food for both man and his livestock shelter for the living and the dead, clothing, medicine, as well as sundry necessities for hunting, fishing and entertainment. These various uses are discussed in relation to the various parts of the tree: roots, trunk, leaves, flowers, and fruit.
In West Africa the roots are reputed to be cooked and eaten, presumably in times of famine. The Temne of Sierra Leone believe that a root-decoction taken with food causes stoutness. The dried -powdered root prepared as a mash may be taken by malaria patients perhaps as atonic (Burkill fined.) In East Africa a soluble red dye is obtained from the roots (Burkill fined.). In Zambia an infusion of the roots is used to bath babies in order to promote a smooth skin. The root bark is used as string or rope for making fishing nets, sacks, mats etc. (D.B Fanshawe, personal communication, 1969).
a) Hollow trunks: The hollow trunks of living trees may be put to a variety of purposes. By far the most common is for the storage of water, a practice first recorded by the Arab traveller Ibn Battuta (1929) from naturally hollowed trees in Mali during the early 14th century. The hollowed trunk may be carved out in 3–4 days; a medium sized tree may hold 400 gallons while a large tree could contain 2000 gallons, and the water therein remains sweet several years if the hollow is kept well closed (Drar, 1970; Nachtigal, 1971). The practice however is viewed with disfavour by medical officers as providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes (Burkillined.). The opening to the hollow is preferably made just above the axil of a branch so that some water may run directly down the branch into the hollow. If possible the soil below the canopy is removed in order to form a small, shallow depression from which the rainwater can collect and then be taken by means of a bucket and a long rope to the opening in the trunk.
An opening in the top of the trunk creates a cooling draught (Koeleman, 1972). Yet another hollow tree in the Transvaal is used as a dairy (Guy, 1971), who also reports of another tree in Botswana being used as a dwelling.
Since the buffalo-weaver birds in Northern Transvaal always rest on the western side of the baobab, the tree can be used in lieu of a compass (E.A. Galpin, personal communication, 1969).
b) Bark: The bark fibres are commonly completely stripped from the lower trunk yet the tree is able to survive and regenerate new bark. The fibre from the inner bark is particularly strong and durable and is widely used throughout the distribution range of the tree for rope, cordage, harness straps, strings for musical instruments, baskets, nets, snares, fishing lines, fibre, cloth, etc. (Griasard, 1891; Williamson, 1955; Sabri, 1968; Woodruff, 1969; Drar, 1970). In both Senegal and Ethiopia the fibres are woven into waterproof hats that may also serve as drinking vessels (De Wildeman, 1903; Grisard, 1891).
The dried bark was once exported to Europe for the manufacture of packing paper (Dalziel, 1937; Burkill, fined.), and since 1848 it has also been imported into Europe under the name of cortex cael cedra, and has been used in the treatment of fevers and as a substitute for chinchona bark (Watt and Breyer; Brandwijk, 1962). Its benefit as a febrifuge however has not been detected in experimental malaria treatments, although it is both diaphoretic and antiperiodic (Burkill, ined.). The bark is certainly used for the treatment of fever in Nigeria (Oliver, 1959). The bark contains a white, semi-fluid gum obtainable from bark wounds. The gum is odourless, tasteless, acidic and insoluble (Watts, 1889) and is used for cleansing sores (Burkill, ined.).
The bark has a bitter taste, and there are uncorroborated accounts of the bark being eaten in Senegal. According to Loustalot and Paga (1949) there are no alkaloids present, and accounts from Nigeria are inconclusive (Burkill, fined.). However, according to Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk (1962) it contains the alkaloid adansonin, which has a strophanthuslike action, yet in East Africa the bark is used as an antidote to strophanthus poisoning. In Malawi the flesh of an animal killed by a poisoned arrow has the juice of the baobab bark pushed into the arrow wound.
In some countries the bark is used for tanning. In Congo Brazzaville a bark decoction is used to bathe rickety children and in Tanzania as a mouthwash for toothache (Burkill, ined.). The ash from the bark and fruit toiled in oil is used as a soap (Rock, 1861; Watt, 1889).
In the Sudan Republic the trees are regarded as personal property that may be inherited or sold (Nachtigal, 1971) and the ownerships of the various trees are kept in local government registers. The trees were often the only source of water available during the dry season for both villagers and long-distance travelers, although a large number of the trees were deliberately destroyed during the time of the Mahdi in order to prevent the movement of people (Owen, 1970). Hollow trees filled with water in the North Frontier Province of Kenya were used by slave and ivory raiders from Ethiopia in order to enable them to cross otherwise waterless country (E.A. Galpin, personal communication, 1969).
Early records of European travelers in South Africa noted the use by the Bantu tribes of water stored in natural hollows (Story, 1964). A chain-like avenue of trees across the Kalahari to south-west Africa was used for water storage, with a long established tradition of death should a traveler leave the bung out of a tree and waste water (Mogg, 1950). The bushmen are reported to abstract water from hollow trunks by means of grass straws (Story, 1958).
In West Africa the hollow trunks may be used as tombs and a place where a body denied burial may be suspended between earth and sky for mummification (Cooke, 1870; Grisard, 1891; Drar, 1970; Owen, 1970; Burkill, ined.); people denied burial include poets, musicians, drummers and buffoons (Guy, 1971; Armstrong, 1977). At Grand Galarques in Senegal a hollow tree with a carved entrance was used as a meeting place (Cooke, 1870), another tree in Nigeria was used as a prison (Owen, 1970) and in Mali the 14th century traveler, Ibn Battuta reported a weaver with a loom set up in a hollow tree (Ibn Battuta, 1929).
Elsewhere in West Africa hollowed trees have been used as stables (Guy, 1971).
In East Africa the trunks may also be hollowed out to provide shelter and storage rooms (Burkill, fined.) but their more varied use occurs in southern Africa. In Rhodesia a hollow tree on the Birchenough Bridge road is used as a bus shelter, accommodating 30–40 persons (E.C. Strover, pers. comm., 1970; Guy, 1971). Another tree near Umtali is used by the Roads Department for the storage of wheelbarrows and implements, and yet another tree in the Triangle Sugar Estates is fitted with crude ladders for use as a watchtower for cane or veld fires (E.C. Strover, personal communication, 1970).
A famous tree in the Caprivi Strip at the home of Major Trollope, Administrator is used as a water closet, complete with flush toilet (D.B. Fanshawe, pers. comm. 1969; E.C. Strover, pers. comm., 1970; Guy, 1971). Near Leydsdorp in the Transvaal the hollow trunk of a baobab serves as a cool room for a tin shack beneath the canopy of the tree that is used as a bar.
c) Wood: The wood is light, 53 lb/cu ft wet, c. 13 lb/cu ft air dried (Pardy,1953). It is spongy and easily attacked by fungi; if left in water it disintegrates in about two months, producing long fibres that could be used for packing (Salmi, 1968).
The wood is not easy to cut; the spongy tissues make the axes bounce off rather than cut. It makes poor firewood and charcoal, and is not suitable for cutting into planks. The wood can be used for making wide, light canoes, wooden platters, trays, floats for fishing nets, etc.
The wood pulp has been found suitable for both wrapping and writing paper (Seabra, 1948; Carvalho, 1953) but attempts to exploit the wood for papermaking have so far failed because of the cost of extracting the moisture from the turgid tissues (Mogg, 1950).
The leaves, especially the young leaves, are popular as a spinach or dried and powdered and made into soups or sauces (Williamson, 1955; Nicol, 1959; Sahini,1968; Woodruff, 1969; Owen, 1970; E.C. Strover, pers. comm., 1970). The trees may be pollarded in order to encourage an abundance of young leaves; pollarding is also carried out on hollow trees used for water storage in order to prevent them becoming top-heavy and falling over. The leaves are also browsed by stock, being an especially valuable fodder for horses (Woodruff, 1969; Burkill, fined.).
Fresh leaves are rich in vitamin C (Carr, 1958) as well as containing uronic acids, rhamnose and other sugars, tannins, potassium tartrate, catechins, etc. (Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk, 1932). The leaves are used medicinally as a diaphoretic, an expectorant, and as a prophylactic against fever, to check excessive perspiration, and as an astringent (Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk, 1962; Carr, 1959, Woodruff, 1969; Beltrame, 1974). The leaves also have hyposensitive and antihistamine properties, being used to treat kidney and bladder diseases, asthma, general fatigue, diarrhoea, inflammations, insect bites, guinea worm, etc. (Burkill, ined.). David Livingstone treated indolent sores with poultices of powdered baobab leaf; the success of the treatment may be because the ulcers were of dietetic origin (Carr, 1959).
The only recorded economic use of the flower is the mixing of the pollen with water to make glue (Woodruff, 1969).
The fruit was known to the ancient Egyptians (Loret and Poisson, 1895; Beauvierie, 1935), and must have been brought there from further south, presumably for some specific purpose. Certainly the fruits were to be found in the Cairo markets in the late 16th century, where they were described by Alpino (1592). They were regarded as a substitute for terra lemnia, being used for medicinal purposes, and as such imported into Europe.
Ibn Battuta (1929) noted that the husks of the fruit may be used as dishes; they may even be fashioned into vessels or snuff boxes (Burkill, fined.) or used as fishing floats (Watt, 1889). The husks can be used as fuel and provide a potash-rich ash suitable for soap making. The powdered husk or peduncle may be smoked as a substitute for tobacco (Burkill, ined.), while the fibres lining the husk are used as a decoction to treat amenorrhoea.
The acid pith, which is rich in ascorbic acid (Carr, 1958) is used as a substitute for cream of tartar for baking (Mogg, 1950; Williamson, 1955); it may also be ground and made into gruel or prepared as a refreshing drink. Medicinally it may be used as a febrifuge and as an anti-dysenteric, and in the treatment of smallpox and measles as an eye instillation (Burkill, ined.). The pulp is also used to curdle milk, and a decoction used to coagulate the latex of Landolphia heudelotii A.DC. (Chevalier, 1906). The pulp is also used for smoking fish, its acrid smell also drives away insects troublesome to stock. In East Africa an extract from the pulp is used as a hairwash (R.G. Strey, verbal information 1978). Both the pith and the seeds, like the bark, contain an antidote to strophanthus poisoning and are carried by a special member of the Shangaan hunting party (E.C. Strover, pers. comm., 1970).
An emulsion of the pith is used by the Fulani herdsmen to adulterate milk, a popular drink with the Kaura farmers whom the Fulani supply (Nicol, 1957).
The seeds have a relatively thick shell which is not readily separated from the kernel. The kernel is edible but the difficulties of decortication limit its usefulness. The seeds may be laten fresh or dry, either sucked, ground and used to flavour soups, or roasted to provide a substitute for coffee. The shoot and roots of germinating seeds and seedlings are also eaten. An oil may be obtained by distillation of the seeds, which is used in Senegal on gala occasions. The crushed, roasted seeds, are applied as a paste to diseased teeth and gums. When burnt the seeds provide a potash-rich salt used for soap making (Burkill, fined.).
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