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Baobab

Baobab
 
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Subkingdom: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Malvales
Family: Bombacaceae
Genus: Adansonia

A baobab is a large African and Australian tree of the genus Adansonia. It stores water inside its trunk.

It is the national tree of Madagascar. Some are many thousands of years old.

In the Kimberleys area of Western Australia, prisoners were held inside its massive hollow trunk. Aborigines used to eat the fruit and use the leaves medicinally.

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's story The Little Prince, the Little Prince was worried that baobabs (described as "trees as big as castles") would grow on his asteroid and take up all the space.

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