Adansonia digitata (African baobab).

My baobabs make me happy, but more on that later. There are 8 different species of baobab--6 from Madagascar and 1 each from mainland Africa and Australia. I would love to eventually get my hands on all 8 kinds. The genus Adansonia is named after the French naturalist Michel Adanson. He was a contemporary of Linnaeus that wrote a paper on baobabs. Digitata refers to the arrangement of leaves that are often in groups of 5 (thus appearing like fingers, which brings us to the Latin digitus). Baobabs are in the mallow family (Malvaceae). This family includes our friends cotton, cacao, kola nut, hibiscus, and okra; and our enemy the durian.

I was going to write about how I acquired these seeds but I don't want to self incriminate. Basically, I came into some baobab seeds in 2005 that were obtained from southern Senegal, outside Cap Skirring by the border with Guinea-Bissau. Here is a photo of the tree that the seeds came from:

You can see, up in the tree, fruits of the baobab tree. Another common name for the baobab is the dead-rat tree. The fruits hang down from the branches and slightly resemble dead rats. If you ask me they look more like opossums. Here is a close up of the fruit the seeds came out of:

Baobab fruit is quite pleasant tasting. The fruit dries out on the tree and is the size and shape of an American football. There is a hard husk that must be cracked in order to expose the edible inner part. Inside is a white, starchy dry fruit that has a lightly sweet, acidic flavor. You can break off a piece and let it dissolve in your mouth over several minutes. All that will remain are black rock-hard seeds about the size and shape of a pinto bean.

I put my seeds in a plastic bag and forgot about them for about 4 years. I encountered them one day while cleaning and decided to dump them into one of my seed pots. After a couple of months 4 of the seeds sprouted (out of approximately 50). They sent up a pair of large cotyledons that were stuck inside the partially intact seed casing. Only 1 of the 4 plants freed itself from the seed. The other 3 I tried to carefully extract; however, I ended up tearing the cotyledons fairly severely. Luckily they all survived and grew into cute little trees.

Each of my baobabs has its own look and personality. Some have deep green leaves, while others are lighter. The leaf shapes are also a bit different. Some are more oval while some have a point. Some have dentation while others are entire. I have read that you can completely desiccate them during the dry season, but I didn't have the heart. Maybe I'll try that with one of them next year.

People also call baobabs the upside-down trees. Their trunks and branches are stubby and look like roots. The trunks store a massive amount of water. I was impressed at how thick the stems were of my baby little trees even after a month or so of growth; however, the real surprise revealed itself when I repotted one of them. Just under the surface of the soil is a massive water storage organ/tap root. You can see it peaking out of the ground in this photo. As you can see it is really thick compared to the trunk.

I am crossing my fingers that more of the baobab seeds will sprout this growing season. I still have a few dozen seeds in my seed pot. If anyone knows of baobabs growing in the Bay Area, please let me know.

Phoenix dactylifera (date palm).

Palms are rather amazing trees that have been used by humans for thousands of years. Palm trees are members of the palm family, Aracaceae (which comes from a local Indian word for a species of palm tree). The name palm tree, apparently comes from the word palm (as in palm of the hand); however, it is a bit more complicated than one might imagine. From what I have read (mainly in the OED), palm of the hand is derived from an Indo-European root word that also gave rise to the word plain (as in flat). Palm fronds used to be given to victors of various contests. They were placed in the hands of the winner and thus the term palm was transferred from the palm of the hand to the item placed in the palm.

That all sounds a little sketchy to me but I'll go with it. It also seems coincidental that some palm fronds are palmate (shaped like hands). I had always assumed that the word for the plant came from the appearance of these fronds. Another bit of complication: there was an ancient city in Syria named Palmyra. The name of the city is either a mistranslation of the Semitic name Tadmor or a reference to the palm trees grown in the city. If the later is true then it could be that palm trees are named after Palmyra or that the name palm tree is much older than the OED reports.

Anyway, the palm we have growing is a date palm from the species Phoenix dactylifera. Date is from the Greek word dactyl for finger. The species name simply means date-bearing (dactyl + Latin -fer). The genus name is possibly taken from either the Greek word for crimson/purple (referring to the color of date fruits) or is a reference to the Phoenicians (who used to trade the fruit). Either way it all comes back to the color. Phoenicia is an exonym given by the Greeks to a tribe that lived in ancient Canaan (the coast of Syria/Lebanon/Israel). This name came from the fact that these people provided the Greeks with Tyrian purple (royal purple dye used for textiles). Phoenix, the mythical firebird, was likewise named by the Greeks for its purple/red plumage.

Dates are one of my favorite fruits; however, I have no love for palm trees. Palms trees set a bunch of records in the plant world: they are the tallest monocots, have the longest leaves, have the largest fruits, and even have the largest inflorescences. Our little palm sprouted from the pit of a date we got at the farmer's market. Often, I'll have palms spring up in random containers because I left the seed for dead and the dirt got recycled. It can take up to a year for them to sprout.

This date palm has been growing over a year and only has two baby fronds. There are a couple of pomelos growing out of the palm pot because, like I said before, I like to recycle soil. Eventually I'll nip them off but for now they aren't really hurting anything. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this palm. My wife likes it so I guess we'll keep it around.