The Baobab. Part 2.

Right! Here we are again! I’m never quite sure how to do this; last week, I wrote part 1 of a post about Baobabs. It had a 750 word introduction. And now I’m setting forth on Part 2, which should, I suppose, have absolutely no introduction at all. Which would just seem wrong.

So we’ll just do a quick recap and soldier on. Here goes with the recap; Baobabs are big, but not tall. They are old, but it’s hard to tell how old. And they are succulents. That’s pretty much it, except that it took me nearly 2000 words to say it, which seems, in retrospect, to be a little excessive. Oh well, let’s see if we can grind out another 2000 words.

Being an enormous succulent is not without its risks. You may have noticed that Baobabs look kind of elephantine. Which is a little ironic, because Baobabs have a mortal enemy. One that also looks a little elephantine.

Twins!

18. The Sausage Tree.

I feel a little guilty. On Tuesday, I put up a post that claimed to be about magic. But it wasn’t. It was about car guards. So today, I’m going to write about real magic. Just as soon as I’m done telling you about Sausage Trees. This is a Sausage Tree.

Its proper name is kigelia africana. It grows down in the Lowveld. It’s one of the bigger trees down there, about twenty metres tall, with a spreading canopy of thick green leaves that provide a dense, cool spot of shade. It has bright red flowers that look like they should be carnivorous. They’re pollinated by bats.

Zombies! Corpses! Poetry! And plants.

When I was but a callow youth, I went on a school tour to Russia, and saw, for the first time, a people who were really into queuing. South Africans aren’t bad at queuing, but for the Russians, it was an art. A passion. A calling. Communism hadn’t fallen yet, and there were shortages of everything, so quite understandably, people were queuing for bread and milk. And cigarettes. And vodka. The necessities.

Absolut necessity.

They also queued for things that seemed less desirable through western eyes; bright red plastic shoes, polyester pants painted to look like jeans, and Elvis LP’s. I’m not knocking them for this- if that was all that was available to me, I might queue up for a little blue suede shoe action myself.