Talk:Adansonia
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I removed the following story inserted by an anonymous user, without context or attribution. It's sounds familiar to me, though. Maybe it could be reinserted as a story rather than literal fact, if somebody knows where the story came from.
- The Baobab was the biggest of all the trees in the bush and he used to brag to all the other trees and wildlife. God heard his bragging and said to the baobab because you're boasting about your size i'm going to turn you upside down to punish you. And that is why the baobab looks like it's roots are on the top.
— Pekinensis 12:51, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
The above is familiar to me too. It's African folklore about the origin of the tree, though I am not familiar with the source of the actual quote. Lendorien 14:29, 4 November 2005
I deleted the reference to the baobab being the national tree of Madagascar because it's not! The traveller's palm (Ravanala madagascariensis) is.
It's common knowledge, the story of God shoving the tree back in the ground upside down, within African folklore... so probably okay to leave it. BUT..
Answers.com takes a lot of its information from Wikipedia, so I don't think that its really plaigerizing.
I'm gonna be asking for a review on this whole article. Seems someone has been plaigerizing, not sure if it's them or us here, but I've seen a good chunk of this in two other places, one other online Encyclopedia and at http://www.answers.com/topic/baobab --JT 05:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Grantkruger 19:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC) I edited the page before seeing the above discussion, but the information is good regardless. To the following,
- The baobab is occasionally known colloquially as "upside-down tree" (from the Arabic legend which claims that the devil pulled out the tree and planted it upside down).
I added,
- This is likely derived from older African lore. The story goes that after creation, each of the animals was given a tree to plant and the stupid hyena planted the baobab upside-down!
I'm from South Africa and I've heard this story from several tribes in South Africa and Mozambique. It is often credited to the bushmen who are amongst the world's oldest people, though their older history is of course oral, rather than written.
[edit] Peer Review?
Not sure if this is the best way to get this looked at, but given that I've seen a LOT of the content of this article in two different places, it'd probably be good to be sure it's not lifted.
--JT 05:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
- I moved the template to the top. Meanwhile, since Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia is a free encyclopedia, people are free to duplicate the content elsewhere as long as they adhere to the licenses. Answers.com is one such place. There are other places that do the same, and some even mirror User pages as well. If you do a Google search for "User:Kjoonlee" I'm sure you'll find places other than Wikipedia. --Kjoonlee 06:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
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- Hi JT - good that you are looking out for potential copyright violations, but you needn't worry in this case, answers.com is copied from here (and they do, as required by the GFDL licence, cite wikipedia as the source: "This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia") - MPF 01:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
The myth of the punishment of the Baobab tree is a legend among the Kamba tribe in Kenya and possibly other tribes in eastern Kenya. It is true that these people held this legand in ancient times. Note by Steve Van Nattan-- Lived in Kenya for about 12 years68.47.162.154 23:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)Insert non-formatted text here
[edit] Evolutionary explanation?
Is there a historical explanation for the distribution of baobabs in Africa and Australia? Have they existed since before the continents were separated? (This seems unlikely, as both varities are still classified in the same genus.) Were there ever baobabs in Asia, that could explain the radiation from Africa to Australia? --Saforrest 20:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
