With their elephantine looks, Africa’s baobab trees are a wonder of nature. They are the world’s oldest flowering plants — or angiosperm — and can live for more than 2,000 years. Unlike hardwood trees with solid, ringed trunks, baobabs are fibrous and retain tens of thousands of gallons of water, much like an enormous succulent plant. But they are under threat: in 2011 the world’s oldest known baobab — a 2,450-year-old tree in Zimbabwe named Panke — collapsed under its own weight. In 2018 a Romanian-led team of international scientists discovered that most of the oldest and largest baobab trees had died in recent years. They believe their sudden demise is due to drought and desertification, linked to climate change. To capture the majesty of Africa’s baobabs and alert the world to their plight, the American photographer Beth Moon travelled to Madagascar — where the country’s largest living baobab, a sacred tree named Tsitakakoike (top left), collapsed in 2018 — then on to Senegal, Botswana and South Africa for her new book, Baobab.
Baobab by Beth Moon is published by Abbeville Press at £36
