Adansonia gregorii, commonly known as the boab, it is a tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Malvaceae

Malvaceae

Malvaceae, or the mallow family, is a family of flowering plants containing over 200 genera with close to 2,300 species. Judd & al. Well known members of this family include okra, jute and cacao...

. As with other baobab

Baobab

Adansonia is a genus of eight species of tree, six native to Madagascar, one native to mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and one to Australia. The mainland African species also occurs on Madagascar, but it is not a native of that island....

s, it is easily recognised by the swollen base of its trunk, which gives the tree a bottle-like appearance. Endemic to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, boab occurs in the Kimberley

Kimberley region of Western Australia

The Kimberley is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northern part of Western Australia, bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts, and on the east by the Northern Territory.The region...

 region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, and east into the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

. It is the only baobab to occur in Australia, the others being native to Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

 (six species) and mainland Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and the Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

 (one species).

Description

Baobab is a medium sized tree ranging in height from 5 to 15 meters, usually between 9 and 12 metres, with a broad bottle-shaped trunk. Its trunk base may be extremely large; trunks with a diameter of over five metres have been recorded. Baobab is deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

, losing its leaves during the dry winter period and producing new leaves and large white flowers between December and May.

Alternative names

The common name "boab" is a shortened form of the generic common name "baobab". Although boab is the most widely recognised common name, Adansonia gregorii has a number of other common names, including:

• baobab — this is the common name for the genus
  Genus
  In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
  
   as a whole, but it is often used in Australia to refer to the Australian species;
• Australian baobab
• bottle tree
• dead rat tree
• gouty stem tree
• cream of tartar tree
• gourd-gourd tree
• sour gourd
• gadawon — one of the names used by the local Indigenous Australians
  Indigenous Australians
  Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
  
  . Other names include larrgadi or larrgadiy, which is widespread in the Nyulnyulan languages
  Nyulnyulan languages
  The Nyulnyulan languages are a small family of closely related Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia.The languages form two branches established on the basis of lexical and morphological innovation....
  
   of the Western Kimberley.

The specific name "gregorii" honours the Australian explorer Augustus Gregory

Augustus Gregory

Sir Augustus Charles Gregory KCMG. was an English-born Australian explorer. Between 1846 and 1858 he undertook four major expeditions.-Early years:...

.

Uses

The plant has a wide variety of uses, most parts are edible and is the sources of a number of materials. Its medicinal products and the ability to store water through dry seasons has also been exploited.

Indigenous Australians obtained water from hollows in the tree, and used the white powder that fills the seed pods as a food. Decorative paintings or carvings were sometimes made on the other surface of the fruits. The leaves were used medicinally.

A large hollow boab just south of Derby, Western Australia

Derby, Western Australia

Derby is a town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. At the 2006 census, Derby had a population of 3,093. Along with Broome and Kununurra, it is one of only three towns in the Kimberley to have a population over 2,000...

 is reputed to have been used in the 1890s as a lockup for Aboriginal prisoners on their way to Derby for sentencing. The Boab Prison Tree

Boab Prison Tree

The Boab Prison Tree is a large hollow Adansonia gregorii tree just south of Derby, Western Australia. It is reputed to have been used in the 1890s as a lockup for Indigenous Australian prisoners on their way to Derby for sentencing...

still stands, and is now a tourist attraction.