Motorcycle Explorer May 2016 Issue 11 | Page 57

The problem with the baobab is that it doesn't get handsome until it's about 800 years old. Hugh Glen, government botanist Another African myth is that when the baobab tree saw its reflection for the first time in a dam, he saw that its own flowers lacked bright colour, its leaves were tiny, it was grossly fat, and its bark resembled the wrinkled hide of an old elephant. It became cantankerous about the branch it was dealt in life and demanded that The Creator do something about his lot. At first everybody just ignored his cheekiness, as they all knew that some organisms were purposefully less than perfect, but after time The Creator became annoyed with this young sapling's whining. He came out from behind the clouds and seized the ingrate by the trunk, yanked it from the ground, turned it over and replanted it upside down. From that day, the Upside-Down-Tree (baobab) has kept quiet, paying off its misdemeanour by doing good deeds for people and animals