The Remarkable Baobab (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780393059892)

Standing tall on the sunburned plains of Africa and Australia, baobabs may be the oldest life forms on the planet. Many of the specimens still standing today have been around for well over two thousand years. Tremendous in size and bizarre in appearance, they have provided food, medicine, and places of refuge and worship to countless peoples, even serving as prisons and tombs on occasion. Long before European explorers opened up the African continent, the news of these "gnarled upside-down giants" had astonished the world of science and stoked the imagination of naturalists everywhere. Thomas Pakenham chronicles his personal encounters with the baobabs of Africa, Australia, Madagascar, and America and shares the countless superstitions and myths, as well as the often-strange history, that surround these enigmatic trees. With 60 color photos and 144 pages with color throughout, The Remarkable Baobab will be a great, and reasonably priced, gift book for the Christmas season.

Author: Thomas Pakenham
ISBN-10: 0393059898
ISBN-13: 9780393059892
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 10/01/2004
Pages: 142
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 8.92h x 7.42w x 0.74d