Africa’s ‘tree of life’ suddenly dying off

The baobab tree, sometimes called the “Tree of Life,” has an unforgettable appearance. Found in savanna regions of Africa, Madagascar and Australia, the trees form a very thick and wide trunk and mainly branch high above the ground. They can grow to be thousands of years old, and develop hollows inside so large that one in South Africa had a bar inside it.

But that tree, the more than 1,000-year-old Sunland baobab, apparently the biggest in Africa, “toppled over” last year. Another famous baobab, the Chapman tree in Botswana, collapsed in 2016.

Something similar, a new scientific study suggests, is happening to the oldest and largest baobabs across the world in “an event of an unprecedented magnitude.”

The new research, by Adrian Patrut of BabesBolyai University in Romania and an international group of colleagues, finds that in the past 12 years, “9 of the 13 oldest and 5 of the 6 largest individuals have died, or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died.”

That’s a tragic loss, considering the history and culture attached to these trees — which are also a key food source for people.

The baobab “is famous because it is the biggest angiosperm, and it is the most iconic tree of Africa,” Patrut said.

Patrut says the largest trees are the most vulnerable — and he believes that a changing climate is involved, although the study itself says that “further research is necessary to support or refute this supposition.”