''Adansonia perrieri'', or Perrier's baobab, is a critically endangered species of

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, a ...

tree, in the genus ''

Adansonia ''Adansonia'' is a genus made up of eight species of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). They are placed in the Malvaceae family, subfamily Bombacoideae. They are native to Madagascar, mainland Africa, and Australia.Tropi ...

''. This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to northern

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. It has been documented in only 10 locations, including Ankarana, Ampasindava, Loky Manambato and Montagne d'Ambre protected areas. Most populations, however, are outside of protected areas. Each location has few individuals (the largest subpopulation has 43 trees). With an estimated population of fewer than 250 mature individuals and ongoing habitat decline due to fire and cutting for charcoal and timber or clearing for mining, this species has been assessed by IUCN as Critically Endangered. There are three species of baobab found in northern Madagascar, all sharing the common name "bozy".

Description

General

Perrier's baobab is a medium to large deciduous tree, growing to 30 m tall, occurring in evergreen rainforests and forming an important component of dry deciduous forest. The trunk is roughly cylindrical and the bark a smooth, pale grey. Baobab trees have two types of shoots – long, green vegetative ones, and stout, woody reproductive ones.Baum, D.A., 1995, A Systematic Revision of Adansonia (Bombacaceae). Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden , 1995, Vol. 82, No. 3 (1995), pp. 440-471

Leaves

This is a deciduous tree, with leaves throughout the wet season (November to April) but none in the dry season. Leaves are

palmately compound A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

in mature trees, with 5 to 11 leaflets (usually 9 or more leaflets per leaf on reproductive shoots). Seedlings and regenerating shoots may have simple leaves. The transition to compound leaves comes with age and may be gradual. Stipules occur at the base of the leaves, are triangular or linear and up to 15 mm long. In most baobabs, stipules are soon shed, but they are persistent in ''A. perrieri''.

Flowers

Baobabs have large, showy flowers that in Perrier's baobab emerge with or just before the leaves, flowering November to December. Flowers are born near the tips of reproductive shoots, in the axils of the leaves. There is usually only a singe flower in an axil, but sometimes flowers occur in pairs. The flowers are reproductive for a maximum of 15 hours. They open around dusk; opening so quickly that movement can be detected by the naked eye and are faded by the next morning. The flower is made up of an outer 5-lobed calyx, and an inner ring of petals set around a fused tube of

stamens The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

. The calyx is green with short stiff hairs outside and cream or pinkish with long, soft hairs inside. It is made up of 5 lobes that in bud are joined almost to the tip. As the flower opens, the calyx lobes split apart and become coiled or bent back (reflexed) at the base of the flower. Sometimes the lobes do not separate cleanly, distorting the shape of the flower as they bend back. The calyx lobes remain fused at the base, leaving a feature (calyx tube) that has nectar-producing tissue and fits tightly around the petal base. The flowers have a long, narrow central tube (staminal tube) made up of fused filaments (stalks of stamens), with around 200 unfused filaments above. A densely hairy

ovary The ovary is an organ in the female reproductive system that produces an ovum. When released, this travels down the fallopian tube into the uterus, where it may become fertilized by a sperm. There is an ovary () found on each side of the bod ...

is enclosed in the staminal tube with a long style tipped with a red or pink stigma emerging from the filaments. Petals are set near the base of the staminal tube and are pale yellow, becoming darker with age. Flowers of Perrier's baobab are pollinated primarily by long-tongued

hawkmoths The Sphingidae are a family of moths ( Lepidoptera) called sphinx moths, also colloquially known as hawk moths, with many of their caterpillars known as “hornworms”; it includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics, bu ...

(''

Coelonia solani ''Coelonia solani'' is a moth of the family Sphingidae. It is known from Mauritius, Réunion (formerly known as Île Bourbon), Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. It is a pollinator of some species of baobab in Madagascar, including ''Adansonia za ...

'' and ''

Xanthopan morganii ''Xanthopan'' is a monotypic genus of sphinx moth, with ''Xanthopan morganii'' (often misspelled as "''morgani''"), commonly called Morgan's sphinx moth, as its sole species. It is a very large sphinx moth from Southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Zambia, ...

'').

Fruits

The

fruits In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particul ...

are large (up to 25 cm long), oblong to egg-shaped and berry-like. They are ripe in October and November. They have a tough 8–9 mm thick outer wall and hold kidney-shaped seeds in a dry, pulpy matrix. The fruits are buoyant and at least in some populations may be dispersed by floating along water courses.

Uses

Fruits are collected for their edible pulp, and trees are cut for charcoal or timber.

Taxonomy

The specific Latin

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

of ''perrieri'' refers to the French botanist

Joseph Marie Henry Alfred Perrier de la Bâthie Joseph Marie Henry Alfred Perrier de la Bâthie (11 August 1873 – 2 October 1958) was a French botanist who specialized in the plants of Madagascar. He is the nephew of Eugène Pierre Perrier de la Bâthie, (1825-1916), another botanist, who al ...

(1873–1958), who studied plants in Madagascar.G.E. Wickens It was first described and published in Notul. Syst. (Paris) Vol.16 on page 66 in 1960.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q141823 perrieri Endangered plants Plants described in 1960 Endemic flora of Madagascar Flora of the Madagascar dry deciduous forests Taxa named by René Paul Raymond Capuron