h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi W.R.
Have just discovered this posting. We lived in Somerset WEst from 1971 until my husband died in 1986. We had a really beautiful home and from the patio - where Dick had built a braii into which he had placed an electric oven/smoker etc. which he had imported from the States - we could look across False Bay and see the lights twinkling 30 miles away. Wonderful.

Regards
AR1

Hello AR1 and Wrinkled Rocker! Sorry for not being around much. My previous modem sucked and then broke, and I was offline for over a month. But now I have a much bigger, new modem, and it seems to be working much better! So just maybe I could now be on a bit more.

Anyways, AR1, I know the Flame Lily, Gloriosa superba, very well, but so far I haven't cultivated it. I could, though, and I intend to try it out soon. But in the meantime I'm still mainly working on trying to cultivate trees. First the easy stuff, then gradually working towards the harder stuff.

Hi dear maurauding pillow case
So that is why you were off line for so long. So glad you are up and working again.
My dear Willem, Baobabs must be one of the most difficult trees to grow? I wonder if one can bonsai them?

AR1

Well hi again! Actually baobabs are among the easiest trees to grow, once you know how. I'm not giving out my trade secrets right now but at the moment I can get a germination rate of almost 100% and what's more my little trees grow about a meter in a season with after 6 months a trunk already an inch thick!

Well, yes, it's quite easy to bonsay baobabs, but I really love them big!

I was in a nursery two weeks ago that had about four bonsai baobabs - very attractive looking plants they were too!
Do you grow them for a living?

Oh my dear Willem,

I would just a bonsai boabab. I also them big, but that is hardly the thing in a flat in England!
You should consider growing them for export if you get such a fantastic germination rate. Wrinkled Rocker says that he saw them in a shop. You should be able to export them,. Then you can come and sass out the market and come and visit us in England!!!

Go well ou kerel and veels geluk in your baobab bonsai venture!!.

AR1

How nice to meet you again Wrinkled Riocker. I thought you had forgotten your old friend from across Die Baai!!.
What a wonderful idea for Willem. I think you should encourage him to go in for it. He is trying to make a business out of germinating indigenous plants and it is hard work.

Spring has sprung and it is incredibl;y hot in England.

Sincere regards
AR1

I spent a week at Langebaan/Saldanha Bay at a conference last month!
Great weather, nice people and TOO MUCH good food!
We went on a lovely evening cruise on the lagoon, dringing beer and eating brie cheese and crackers...
These activities I'm forced to partake in, all in the course of my work...!

Hello again AR1 and Wrinkled Rocker! I'm glad you enjoyed the stay at Saldanah and Langebaan. I've not yet been in that part of the country. The closest I've been is Mossel Bay and that was about fifteen years ago.

Over here it is now definitely Autumn and on the way to Winter. I'm having to start sleeping with lots of blankets and it's getting quite chilly in the mornings.

I cultivate plants primarily not for money, but because I love plants, and for purposes of nature conservation. I have a vision of what I wish to accomplish. Though it’s fine if people in Britain want bonsai baobabs, my primary aim is to grow baobabs for Africa! It is here where they belong, it is here where they are needed! Here in my own region of the world, Limpopo, South Africa, there are definitely not enough baobabs left. There are many places where there should be many more baobabs, where they used to be and would do well if they could grow there again. My aim is to really try and get people to plant lots and lots of baobabs all over the place … on farms, in nature reserves, even in city parks and big gardens. The bare facts are that baobabs are first of all magnificent trees and a natural wonder of Africa and of this region (Limpopo) … and secondly, they are amazingly useful in nature. Baobabs are the largest xerophytic, succulent plants in the world … they store lots of water in their trunks, they are very well adapted to extremely dry circumstances, they are the biggest plants by far that occur here, and in these dry regions they are vast sources of nourishment and shelter. Many species of game browse on their leaves after they’ve fallen to the ground. Then they have huge flowers and fruit as well. The flowers are pollinated by bats and they (the flowers, not the bats!), too, drop to the ground and are eaten by animals. And then the large fruits appear, and these too are amazingly nutritious. They’re eaten by monkeys and baboons on the tree, or if they escape this and drop to the ground (the fruits, not the monkeys and baboons!), they’re eaten by lots of other animals.

And humans too! I absolutely love the taste of baobab fruits.

Baobabs are also eaten by elephants … they eat the entire tree, leaf, bark and wood. In fact elephants may be overly destructive of them … for which reason it would be good to plant many baobabs in protected places, for instance on rocky hills that are too steep for elephants to climb. Under natural conditions those are the places where baobabs would most frequently grow and become big. Right now there are millions of rocky hills that are without baobabs, that could very fruitfully be supplied with some, and this would increase the security of the baobab populations tremendously.

Apart from food, baobabs also provide shelter. Perhaps their shelter-providing capacity is the most important of all. In particular, baobabs form the absolutely favourite nesting places for one of my own favourite kinds of birds, the ground hornbills. These hornbills are very large, weighing up to 6 kg, or 13 pounds, and they need very large trees for their nests. They prefer nesting in a large hollow open at the top, such as often found at the top of the baobab’s trunk, at the place where the topmost branches emerge and diverge. There are not many other kinds of tree with this feature. Ground hornbills have been for a long time now becoming scarcer, mainly because of human disturbance and alteration of their habitat, including the destruction of baobabs and other big trees. These trees have been culled out by humans for firewood or wood for construction and in the case of the baobabs for making paper of the fibers of their trunks. Many trees have also been destroyed by bush fires which regularly happen in regions of human habitation. The result of all this is that, now, there are very very few really large trees left in the hot, dry savannah regions where the ground hornbills live. So the ground hornbills are severely restricted as to nesting sites. So the ground hornbills are severely hampered in their reproduction! And they are birds that grow and mature slowly, and also reproduce slowly. They only raise one chick at a time and it’s a couple of years between chicks. So they’ve been becoming rarer and rarer and are really threatened right now. And a really major way of improving their situation would be to increase the number of big baobab trees in this region. The trees that remain should be protected, especially the younger trees and seedlings so they could survive and grow into big trees in a few decades or centuries, and also new ones should be planted in areas where they’ve been exterminated so new populations should get started.

There are captive breeding programs for the ground hornbills, but in my view these programs would work best in conjunction with the sort of habitat improvement that I’m envisaging, which is the restoration of big trees, especially baobabs, from areas that have suffered the ravages of humans.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could breed bonsai-hornbills to breed in bonsai-baobabs!

Apart from ground hornbills there are many, many other birds and other animals that use baobabs for shelter. Their crowns are also used as nesting sites for large eagles, vultures, owls, and smaller birds such as buffalo weavers and white-crowned shrikes, and the crannies of their trunks are used by two rare species of swift … the mottled spinetail, and Böhm’s spinetail. And also many, many other creatures … squirrels, bats, agamas, geckoes, and so forth. Hole-nesting birds excavate their holes from the thick bark and soft wood. Leopards may use their crowns as feeding sites. And so forth and so forth. The bottom line is that a single, big baobab tree can provide for scores of other creatures, from small to large. A single baobab tree is a ‘habitat’ in itself.

So I hope you can understand that my prime goal is to, as much as possible, propagate and promote baobab trees here in Africa because it’s here in Africa where they are most needed and most useful. I mean, ecologically speaking, they are desperately needed and ultra-useful. Right now I’m still trying to get people aware of and interested in what I’m doing over here … I would be able, right now, to provide about two hundred baobab trees per year and I’d like them all to be planted in this region, northernmost South Africa … I’d like to eventually get to the point where I have a larger piece of land for a nursery and a botanic garden, in which case I’d like to contribute thousands of baobab trees, per year, to the region. Really I won’t mind if eventually I can provide a hundred thousand to a million baobab trees per year for this region and places further northwards, other tropical African countries. But even ten thousand a year, if I can keep it up for many decades, would result in a substantial improvement in the situation of the baobabs over here. Well anyways, I could set aside a few for people in Britain or elsewhere … but my priority would always be Africa.

Dear dear Willem,big
What a wonderful entry. Full of information and much interesting material. Of course I understand that you are doing it for Africa and I think that it is an admirable project and I congratulate you on it.
Is it true that the baobab is the source of bicarbonate of soda?
Have you had a good Easter? I hope so.
Much affection
Ar1

Oh, my poor Wrinkled Rocker.! How awful to have to endure such pleasanteries as Langebaan Lagoon. Brie etc. in the name of work!. My heart bleeds for you!!
I knew someone in Cape town who used to work with the whaling station at Langebaan. He told me a dreadful story about how once they caught a whale and she was in milk and when they killed her her milk spilt into the lagoon and it became white. I have never been able to drive around Langebaan without thinking of that. We really are dreadful the way we have destroyed so much of nature.
Hope you are having a good Easter. Mine has been very quiet. But I am beginning to plan my holiday in Fish Hoek in January and Feburary next year. I do hope that it materialises.
all good wishes
AR1

Willem - Good luck with your work on the baobabs! Perhaps you should be called Great Human Hornbill! I have always wondered if the baobab would have spread south of the Soutpansberg if someone like you had started work a hundred years ago...! There was a Spaniard who spent his life walking about planting acorns wherever he found them lying about. Within ten years he had made such a difference the government sent forestry officials to work out what was happening. They couldn't, so they sent out tourism officials to promote the expanding natural forests. The Planter must have died a very happy man!

AR1 - I saw the 2 old whaling stations at Langebaan during our evening cruise. They are now part of a (Special Forces, I think) military training base that occupies the whole south-western peninsula above the nature reserve. Humans as a species have bred their way into the most destructive influence on this earth - and that will be our demise and eradication - unless war, AIDS and other natural influences fixes the problem for us. We certainly aren't doing much about it!

PS: Willem - those funny codes in your posting come from using Word and copy/pasting into H2G2. I found that out myself a while ago. If you copy from Rich Text Format it leaves them out, as I recall!

OK I'll repost the posting so it can be read more easily ... I think if I use NotePad to fix it it should be OK?

Hi Wrinkled Rocker,

Thank you for confirming that it wasn't a nightmare about that whaling station. It is true that human beings are most dreadfully destructive and wasteful.

I can remember that straight after WW2 when one bought a pair of nylon stockings they lasted for months. Then it suddenly dawned on the manufacturers that they would never ever show a profit if they made stockings which never laddered and never snagged. So what do we have now.!!. Ask your wife!1

I hope that you had a happy Easter. Ours turned out to be nice.
Good wishes,

AR1

Hi dear Willem

I love the story which Wrinkled Rocker has told you about the acorns being planted everywhere. That was fascinating. So you will be doing the same with the baobabs!1. Am I wrong in thinking that another name for the baobab is the lucky bean tree?

I also liked his story about the hornbill. Well, ou kerel, you have made your mark on hootoo!!.

I hope you had a good Easter. Ours turned out to be very nice and I drove into London with only my son K. in the car. And we got there successfully although I had to drive right through the centre of London. I felt very proud of myself.

Best wishes,

AR1

OK here's my previous posting with the swear words and code removed:

***

I cultivate plants primarily not for money, but because I love plants, and for purposes of nature conservation. I have a vision of what I wish to accomplish. Though it's fine if people in Britain want bonsai baobabs, my primary aim is to grow baobabs for Africa! It is here where they belong, it is here where they are needed! Here in my own region of the world, Limpopo, South Africa, there are definitely not enough baobabs left. There are many places where there should be many more baobabs, where they used to be and would do well if they could grow there again. My aim is to really try and get people to plant lots and lots of baobabs all over the place; on farms, in nature reserves, even in city parks and big gardens. The bare facts are that baobabs are first of all magnificent trees and a natural wonder of Africa and of this region (Limpopo); and secondly, they are amazingly useful in nature. Baobabs are the largest xerophytic, succulent plants in the world; they store lots of water in their trunks, they are very well adapted to extremely dry circumstances, they are the biggest plants by far that occur here, and in these dry regions they are vast sources of nourishment and shelter. Many species of game browse on their leaves after they've fallen to the ground. Then they have huge flowers and fruit as well. The flowers are pollinated by bats and they (the flowers, not the bats!), too, drop to the ground and are eaten by animals. And then the large fruits appear, and these too are amazingly nutritious. They'e eaten by monkeys and baboons on the tree, or if they escape this and drop to the ground (the fruits, not the monkeys and baboons!), they're eaten by lots of other animals.

And humans too! I absolutely love the taste of baobab fruits.

Baobabs are also eaten by elephants; they eat the entire tree, leaf, bark and wood. In fact elephants may be overly destructive of them; for which reason it would be good to plant many baobabs in protected places, for instance on rocky hills that are too steep for elephants to climb. Under natural conditions those are the places where baobabs would most frequently grow and become big. Right now there are millions of rocky hills that are without baobabs, that could very fruitfully be supplied with some, and this would increase the security of the baobab populations tremendously.

Apart from food, baobabs also provide shelter. Perhaps their shelter-providing capacity is the most important of all. In particular, baobabs form the absolutely favourite nesting places for one of my own favourite kinds of birds, the ground hornbills. These hornbills are very large, weighing up to 6 kg, or 13 pounds, and they need very large trees for their nests. They prefer nesting in a large hollow open at the top, such as often found at the top of the baobab’s trunk, at the place where the topmost branches emerge and diverge. There are not many other kinds of tree with this feature. Ground hornbills have been for a long time now becoming scarcer, mainly because of human disturbance and alteration of their habitat, including the destruction of baobabs and other big trees. These trees have been culled out by humans for firewood or wood for construction and in the case of the baobabs for making paper of the fibers of their trunks. Many trees have also been destroyed by bush fires which regularly happen in regions of human habitation. The result of all this is that, now, there are very very few really large trees left in the hot, dry savannah regions where the ground hornbills live. So the ground hornbills are severely restricted as to nesting sites. So the ground hornbills are severely hampered in their reproduction! And they are birds that grow and mature slowly, and also reproduce slowly. They only raise one chick at a time and it's a couple of years between chicks. So they've been becoming rarer and rarer and are really threatened right now. And a really major way of improving their situation would be to increase the number of big baobab trees in this region. The trees that remain should be protected, especially the younger trees and seedlings so they could survive and grow into big trees in a few decades or centuries, and also new ones should be planted in areas where they've been exterminated so new populations should get started.

There are captive breeding programs for the ground hornbills, but in my view these programs would work best in conjunction with the sort of habitat improvement that I'm envisaging, which is the restoration of big trees, especially baobabs, from areas that have suffered the ravages of humans.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could breed bonsai-hornbills to breed in bonsai-baobabs!

Apart from ground hornbills there are many, many other birds and other animals that use baobabs for shelter. Their crowns are also used as nesting sites for large eagles, vultures, owls, and smaller birds such as buffalo weavers and white-crowned shrikes, and the crannies of their trunks are used by two rare species of swift: the mottled spinetail, and Böhm's spinetail. And also many, many other creatures: squirrels, bats, agamas, geckoes, and so forth. Hole-nesting birds excavate their holes from the thick bark and soft wood. Leopards may use their crowns as feeding sites. And so forth and so forth. The bottom line is that a single, big baobab tree can provide for scores of other creatures, from small to large. A single baobab tree is a 'habitat' in itself.

So I hope you can understand that my prime goal is to, as much as possible, propagate and promote baobab trees here in Africa because it's here in Africa where they are most needed and most useful. I mean, ecologically speaking, they are desperately needed and ultra-useful. Right now I'm still trying to get people aware of and interested in what I'm doing over here; I would be able, right now, to provide about two hundred baobab trees per year and I'd like them all to be planted in this region, northernmost South Africa; I'd like to eventually get to the point where I have a larger piece of land for a nursery and a botanic garden, in which case I'd like to contribute thousands of baobab trees, per year, to the region. Really I won't mind if eventually I can provide a hundred thousand to a million baobab trees per year for this region and places further northwards, other tropical African countries. But even ten thousand a year, if I can keep it up for many decades, would result in a substantial improvement in the situation of the baobabs over here. Well anyways, I could set aside a few for people in Britain or elsewhere; but my priority would always be Africa.

***

I hope that reads much easier!

Just to answer some questions ... no, I don't think you could get bicarbonate of soda from a baobab ... I might be wrong though ... but you do get a kind of powder called 'cream of tartar' from it. It might be possible to derive bicarbonate of soda from it but I've never heard of that.

As for the 'lucky bean tree' ... right here the tree they call the 'lucky bean tree' is in fact the Sacred Coral Tree, Erythrina lysistemon. It has very hard and round bright red seeds with a black spot on each, like a bead. Another kind of coral tree, the Large-leaved Coral tree, has similar seeds that are much bigger, about the size of a small marble. These seeds are very pretty and kids love to collect them. Other trees that also have 'lucky bean' type seeds are the Lucky Bean Creeper, Abrus precatorius, and the Pod Mahogany, Afzelia quanzensis. These seeds are often used as jewelry, in necklaces for instance. Other seeds that are thus used include the seeds of palm trees, especially the Lala palms Hyphaene coriacea and Hyphaene benguellensis.

Wrinkled Rocker, my aim is not to plant baobabs in areas where they would not likely occur naturally, but to just increase there numbers in the areas where they could occur naturally. As it is there are baobabs south of the Soutpansberg. They occur in the Duivelskloof area, and also in the Western Limpopo area around the Limpopo River to about a bit north and west of Thabazimbi. There are a few in and around Pietersburg/Polokwane and though they've been planted, they grow well enough. They might have occured here in that past and might under natural conditions spread here again if allowed, so I regard them as being suitable here. But they'll potentially grow best in the region north of the Soutpansberg where it's really hot. That's not so far from where I live.

Ooops, sorry, I missed one code word!

I have a Sacred Coral in my garden (the one with small red seeds and the black dot). It has struggled for five years or more with some parasitic worm infestation in the bark. The bark surface gets a brown appearance and the substrate becomes spongy and brown, not green like the healthy fibre. The white worm seems to be linked somehow to ant activity on and around the tree.

As I'm not a poison user, I have treated this by cutting away the surface of the infested areas and exposing the fibrous flesh. Crested Barbits and other garden birds do the cleanup for me and the bark recovers within a few weeks, hardening again and forming a thin brown layer which gradually gets the knurled knobbly texture again.

The worm seems to be introduced into young branches. These die off when less than 300mm long, leaving a hollow stump. One winter I cut off all the lateral branches, leaving only the main trunk about 2m high. Within a year, three new trunks had sprouted from the base and fresh laterals from the stumpy trunk. Since then the worm infestation seems manageable with my attentions and encouragement. There is some termite activity at the base, but I continue to wash away any tunnel traces. Do you know if tobacco dust scattered around the base would help control the ants + termites?

We had a picnic in the Pretoria Botanical Gardens today. There are about seven young baobabs growning there on the north slope of the koppie. They must be some of the most southerly ones growing in the ground?

Our bike club does a run up to the Limpopo province every year, taking in the Pontdrif border post (most northern point of SA accessible by road) as part of our 'Extreme rider' challenge. To get the 'Extreme rider' award you must ride to each of the four extremes of the country - Pontdrif (N) Kosi Bay (E) Cape d'Agulhas (S) and Alexander Bay (W) and take a photograph to prove you were there. I hope to do Alex Bay this year then I only have Agulhas to do for mine!

PS - I will be appearing with my band in Ellisras on 10th May for a dance and again on 5th July for the Bosveldfees (i.e. Bushveld Festival)

Hi Wrinkled rocker
I wonder what you are doing today. It is apparently a holiday in South Africa. I have just phoned my daughter in Joeys and had a lovely long chat with her.
I think that the way you managed to fix your plant was superb. I also remembered with pleasure the time I visited them. I seem to remember that they were reasonably close to the swimming pool. And to the best of my memory the 1946 Currie Cup Swimming championships were held there. They were in effect trials for the 1948 Olympic Games. That was when I had the honour of being one of ten swimmers chosen to train for the next three seasons for possible selection into the SA Lympic Games swimming team. Happy memories!!.
It sounds as if you could really meet up with Willem on your bike tour. I hope that you do.Incidentally on your travels by bike have you visited the Fish River Canyon? I also think that you should try and get to Cape Town when I hope to be there. We can have a SA meet there!. That would be fun.
Today is a bit of a grey day. I shall be gardening this afternoon.
Have a happy day to both you and Willem
Kind regards
AR1
Incidentally what instrument do you play in the band?

Hi Wrinkled rocker
I wonder what you are doing today. It is apparently a holiday in South Africa. I have just phoned my daughter in Joeys and had a lovely long chat with her.
I think that the way you managed to fix your plant was superb. I also remembered with pleasure the time I visited them. I seem to remember that they were reasonably close to the swimming pool. And to the best of my memory the 1946 Currie Cup Swimming championships were held there. They were in effect trials for the 1948 Olympic Games. That was when I had the honour of being one of ten swimmers chosen to train for the next three seasons for possible selection into the SA Lympic Games swimming team. Happy memories!!.
It sounds as if you could really meet up with Willem on your bike tour. I hope that you do.Incidentally on your travels by bike have you visited the Fish River Canyon? I also think that you should try and get to Cape Town when I hope to be there. We can have a SA meet there!. That would be fun.
Today is a bit of a grey day. I shall be gardening this afternoon.
Have a happy day to both you and Willem
Kind regards
AR1
Incidentally what instrument do you play in the band?