Botanical names for the boab

The scienti c name for the boab genus, Adansonia, was coined in 1762. Its author was Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, pharmacist and, nine years earlier, creator of the system of biological nomenclature in which this name was established. e name honours the French botanist Michel Adanson, who, in addition to publishing the rst full botanical description of the baobab, spent much of his life unsuccessfully urging scientists to adopt his own rather than Linnaeus’s system of classi cation for plants (inspiring, to some extent, a recent novel by David Diop, Beyond the Door of No Return). Although it seems Linnaeus was happy to honour his rival, he was not inclined to use the name suggested by Adanson: baobab. e baobab had been marvelled at and written about by Arab traders and European explorers in the 16th century, and its fruit was described by Venetian botanist Prospero Alpini under the name bahobab – probably drawn from the Arabic word buhibab for ‘many seeded fruit’. at many-seeded fruit then made its way to Egypt, and so to European awareness – although it was only when Adanson visited Senegal and provided his botanical description and illustration that Linnaeus was prompted to add this group of plants to his botanical schema. It was botanist and eeting director of Sydney’s botanic gardens Allan Cunningham who in 1827 provided the rst written account of jungeri (among other local names for the boab) in Australia. It took another 30 years for the connection between these trees and those of Africa and Madagascar to be made. is was done by Ferdinand von Mueller, inaugural director of Melbourne’s botanic gardens. He described the Australian species as Adansonia gregorii after encountering it on the Gregory Expedition to northern Australia.