Have you seen the stones of Mars?

Ochre and terracotta coloured sand, white quartz gravel reflecting the blazing sun, which is not as hot as the interspersed darker rocks or soil; the swollen green fingers, blue-green pebbles, plum red buttons, bright shiny magenta flowers – these are the endemic living stones: lithops.

Lithops have other descriptive names, such as Bushman’s or Hottentot’s buttocks; the Afrikaaners call them beeskloutjies (cattle hoof) and skaappaatjies (sheep hoof), or belly plants .. perhaps because you have to crawl on your belly in order to find them. Originally classified in the Mesembryanthemaceae family in 1811, it was renamed in 1922 from two Greek words ‘lithos’ meaning ‘stone’ and ‘ops’ meaning ‘like’.

A single plant is about the size of a ladies’ fingertip, the plants go dormant in the dry season, protected by a papery covering, which sloughs off in the rainy season as the plants grow and fill up with water (white remnants can be seen. In the top left corner of the picture are some real stones. Courtesy of http://made-in-afrika.com/myblog/14aloenamaqualand.htm

Lithops disappear into the stony desert without a second thought and have evolved to mimic the stones and pebbles around them ... the reason for this disappearing act is so obvious in that treacherous hot environment that anything remotely edible to small mammals, animals or insects would not last long.

There are predators, if we can call them that, for these succulent treats – particularly the Bush Cricket, the Cape Porcupine and the Cape Ground Squirrel. So the clever living stones developed their own way of hiding, reproducing, obtaining the maximum benefit of any nutrients, minimum rainfall or life giving fog leaving dewy drops behind before it is burnt off by the rising sun.

These stone faces are found prolifically in Namibia, particularly in the desert scrub areas, where plant life is scarce; where temperatures can be excessive (46 deg C) or nearly zero, when night time lows are barely above freezing. They exist on the margins of survival: if they get too much sunlight, the water held in their tissues heats up, even their leathery leaves cannot help, and they are cooked from the inside out. In their natural habitat they are usually shaded for part of the day by rocks, shrubs, or other plants larger than themselves.

Bush Cricket - can you spot him?

The Knersvlakte is a region of hilly terrain covered with quartz gravel in Namaqualand in the north-west corner of South Africa – earth’s Mars is here .. “The Richtersveld” and is regarded as the only ‘Arid Biodiversity Hotspot on Earth’, which still has an astonishing variety of plant, bird and animal life, much of which is endemic. The landscape is sometimes described as “martian”.

The Richtersveld National Park is a mountainous desert landscape and the closest most of us will ever get to setting foot on Mars (cheaper too!). Hot days end with incredibly vivid sunsets that paint the sky in palette of colours before giving way to inky black nights where shooting stars regularly blaze through the dark sky.

The Orange River rises in the Drakensburg mountains, flows through South Africa before becoming the border with Namibia, creating a wide river bed through these gravel plains and dunes then emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, providing the only source of water in the Richtersveld after cutting its green swathe through this martian landscape.

Swollen green fingers and blue-green pebbles can survive with their leathery leaves and adapted life forms, sprouting forth once a year with a brightly coloured flower before dying back, splitting creating a fissure for the two new leaves (sometimes four, this is how they multiply), and from where the new head emerges.

The new ‘stone like’ head derives all its moisture from the old leaves, which gradually shrivel and become a dry, parchment-like collar around the base of the plant ... giving life to the martian desert, naming it Knersvlakte “the gnashing teeth scrunch” of pioneer wagon wheels on the hard quartz stones, as they kept rolling on over these inhospitable and uncompromising arid desert plains.

Richtersveld at night

But as with all life – it is interconnected, the stone like pebble offers seeds for the tiny insects hiding amongst the quartz chips, the insects being guzzled by the small mammals or rodents, those then being hunted by the larger mammals and so life goes on – this martian landscape also provides life.

It’s good to see you today Mr Postman and for letting us have this letter – my mother enjoys remembering her trips into the northern Cape and Namibia .. she liked exploring - we have had a wonderful sunny Saturday ..

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Sea at the end of the tunnel ....

Tunnelling through a cliff just to go for a bathe? A family swim perhaps, well no - not an ordinary swim as we would expect ... but a segregated one? A swim where you had to wear a dress of sorts, or nothing at all? A swim where you were backed into the sea, and could emerge when the water was two or three feet deep?

Well those were the days of Georgian Britain (1714 – 1830) when taking the waters – sea water – was considered something you did for your health, rather than for pleasure. Ilfracombe, on the north Devon coast, in the late 1700s became a fashionable spa and sea-bathing destination for wealthy Georgians, when a number of hotels, guesthouses and public rooms were established.

The town’s status as a resort was confirmed by its inclusion in the national “Guide to all the Watering and Sea Bathing Places” dated 1803. The Georgian visitors must have wanted adventure ... as access to the sea was gained by climbing the cliffs, rounding the point by boat, swimming or at the lowest tides clambering around the rocks of the point – this was no easy playground. The sexes were still segregated, the ladies would frequent one local beach, while the gentlemen went on a boat trip to another cove where they would bathe in the nude.

Dress sense for the ladies was somewhat different – a cloth bathing cap or hat, a chemise or frock like top, and knickerbockers keeping most flesh covered up – weights were even inserted into the hem so that they would not float up ... what an uncomfortable way of swimming.

The introduction of bathing machines, as they were known, provided a way to ensure modesty was preserved, as well as enforcing the etiquette rules. As early as 1736 an engraving shows people bathing and what appears to be the first evidence for bathing machines; their use spread to other parts of the world, eventually in 1901 legal segregation ended leading to a rapid decline in bathing machines.

1859 fashion plate from the "Gazette of Fashion", showing both male and female daywear, with sea bathing scene in the background (including bathing machines)

Talk about a rigmarole to go swimming ... ladies entered in their street clothes, changed, placing their street clothes into a raised compartment where they would remain dry. The most common machines had large wide wheels and were propelled in and out of the surf by a horse, with a driver. Other methods were used including the new invention of a steam engine, which propelled cables pulling the machines in and out.

Ilfracombe, already established and listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, was a significant port on the Bristol Channel by way of its natural harbour providing a safe port on stormy days, with trade routes long established between South Wales and Ireland. The inaccessible rocky shoreline also provided caves for the smugglers or pirates of the time.

Mermaids at Brighton swim behind their bathing machines in this engraving by William Heath, c. 1829
A novelist Fanny Burney stayed here in 1817 and commented in her diary over a two month period, about a captured Spanish ship, two ships in distress in a storm, and her lucky escape after being cut-off by the tide.

In 1810 a local Ilfracombe entrepreneur saw the potential of the two sheltered coves used separately by the ladies and gentlemen. At that time it would have taken over 30 hours to travel down from London, with the last part on a fairly uncomfortable rutted coach road over the hills down to the fishing and trading port – an easy route to the sea itself would enhance this pretty seaside town.

Miners were brought from the Welsh Valleys to cut tunnels through the cliffs, to provide access to the two coves, and in 1823 the beaches were opened to the public. Segregation was still rigorously enforced, the coves were modified in 1824 by enclosing two extensive tidal bathing pools.

Still preserved is the old Greek inspired Bath House, built in 1836, as is the wood fuelled pump house which served to feed sea water to the Bath House for cold and hot sea water baths: perfect in the days when bathing was still viewed as a health spa regime, when discomfort might mean ‘improvement’.

Ladies - imagine that time ... standing shivering on the steps wishing your ordeal was all over, that you did not have to get soaked in that cold, cold water, then coming out and struggling to get dry, constantly rubbing the sea water off, the sticky dryness once finally dressed again in your street finery. I know the alleged reason for sea-bathing is that it makes you feel so well afterwards; but so does any unpleasant experience, merely by force of contrast.

Fortunately today you can go down the gently sloping tunnels, coming out into the light, as the picture unfolds, a thumbnail to start with, a panoramic seaside view exploding in front of you ... rugged cliffs, rippling waves, or splashing bursts of spray, rock pools full of watery delights, craggy rocks with barnacles, pockets of golden sand, turquoises, deep greens, sea greens, blue skies, dark forbidding clouds scuttling by ... perhaps the sun sparkling the waves, or when setting sending its golden orange glow across the seascape ... an arena of peace – unspoilt by man since the tunnels were built.

Dear Mr Postman .. thank you for coming today and delivering this letter of the seaside .. my mother will definitely be interested, as will my uncle, it's an area he knows well.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters

Sneakers or Plimsolls, sea water or fresh water ..

Plying the seas has been the main way to trade and transport goods and services or citizens around the known or explored world. When the Kingdom of Crete ruled the Mediterranean waves in 2,500 BC, maritime legislation was already in place, which included official loading regulations, requiring vessels to pass loading and maintenance inspections. Roman sea regulations also contained similar authoritative directions.

During the Middle Ages, the shipping routes in the Mediterranean were policed by fleets from the Maritime Republics, two of which were the Genoese and the Venetian city states, to the extent that other sovereign states would pay for the privilege of protection from pirates in their seas; the City of London in 1190 paid the Doge of Genoa for this privilege. Similarly the Hanseatic League along the coast of Northern Europe operated a trade monopoly. These three alliances each required that ships load to a load line.

The load line symbol for Venice was a cross marked on the side of the ship, while Genoa had three horizontal lines and when Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping in 1835 began incorporating load lines into their Regulations, the Lloyd’s mark used is a circle with a horizontal line through it (ultimately with the letters L, R respectively at the end – denoting the Lloyd’s classification).

In the 1800s, as trade increased, ships became larger and faster, steam combined and /or replaced sail, navigation was easier, the world ‘was shrinking’; ship owners and shippers were all too keen to exploit these commercial opportunities both locally and globally.

In the latter half of the 19th century there was an increased loss of ships at sea due to overloading either of cargo or emigrants, these ships were referred to as “coffin ships”; meaning these were unseaworthy and overloaded vessels, often heavily insured, in which unscrupulous owners risked the lives of their crews and all persons on board.

Samuel Plimsoll (1825 – 1898), who had been born in Bristol – the great North Atlantic seafaring port of the 1600 and 1700s – had become an MP and social reformer, after becoming destitute early in life, restoring his fortunes; through this experience, he learnt to sympathise with the struggles of the poor, whereby he resolved to devote his time to improving their condition.

Plimsoll, elected a Liberal MP in 1868, endeavoured to pass a bill dealing with the subject of a safe load line on ships. The main problem was the number of ship-owning MPs in Parliament. Plimsoll persevered and a Royal Commission was appointed in 1873, and in 1875 a government bill was introduced – however Benjamin Disraeli, the British Prime Minister, announced that the bill would be dropped. Samuel Plimsoll lost his self-control, applied the term “villains” to members of the House, and shook his fist in the Speaker’s face.

Well that must have been quite an interesting day in Parliament, don’t you think? Plimsoll eventually apologised, but the point had been made: many people agreed with him, including other Members of Parliament, who shared his view that the bill had been stifled by the pressure of the ship owners, and popular feeling forced the government to pass a bill becoming the Merchant Shipping Act (1876).

The safe limit to which a ship may be loaded generally became known as the Plimsoll Line. The Line is actually a series of lines painted on the outside of the ship, showing the various safe levels to which the ship can be loaded.

Typically the loading levels are marked for loaded and unloaded draught in sea and fresh water, winter and summer, and tropical or northern waters. The reason for the differentiation is that the different conditions affect the buoyancy, as does the salinity, depending on the density: warm water is less dense than cold, and therefore provides less buoyancy; likewise fresh water is less dense than salty seawater.

Ship side picture of Plimsoll Line, courtesy of www.brighthub.com

There are other marks which have been brought into use in the past one hundred and thirty years as our knowledge has increased. For the technically inclined the Summer load line is the primary load line and it is from this mark that all other marks are derived – please see Wikipedia for further details.

Together with Lloyd's Register (LR) and American Bureau of Shipping (AB), Det Norske Veritas (DNV) is one of the three major companies in the classification society business. Here you will see the markings DNV, S is for the summer load line – obtained from BrightHub.

In the 1830s an athletic shoe with a canvas upper and rubber sole was developed as beachwear by the Liverpool Rubber Company (later to become Dunlop). The name plimsoll was coined, as the coloured horizontal band joining the upper to the sole resembled the Plimsoll Line on a ship’s hull, or because, just like the Plimsoll line on a ship, if water got above the line of the rubber sole, the wearer would get wet.

A rubber sole protects us, while the painted load line and regulatory enforcement of these hieroglyphical lines and cryptic initials ensure that we sail safely having gained our engineering knowledge following the principles of Archimedes Principle on flotation applied by the generations 2,200 years later.

Thank you Mr Postman for visiting today .. we will remember our sailing exploits, or playing around in the bath as kids displacing water in all directions around the bathroom - the dirt rim was called a tide line I seem to remember; also our first plimsoll shoes, as they were called when I was at school, and which we used at home a great deal .. I seem to remember having to whiten them.

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Black Swans .. with a little Latin, Greek, Sanskrit thrown in for good measure ...

Apparently the genus Cygnus evolved in Europe or western Eurasia in the Miocene period – this was an awful long time ago .. far too complicated for me to put into any sort of time frame that I at least can understand! Later on the southern species branched off. Miocene comes from the Greek words for “less” and “new”, meaning “less recent”, because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates (95% of all animal species) than the Pliocene epoch.

The word swan has derivations in Old English, German and Dutch, which in turn was derived from the Indo-European root “swen” (to sound , to sing), whereby Latin derives "sonus” (sound). Young swans are known as ‘cygnets’ from the Latin word for swan, ‘Cygnus’.

While the term cob for an adult male, comes from middle English cobbe (leader of a group); an adult female is a pen. Pen is also derived from the Sanskrit root ‘pet’ to fly, coming from the Latin ‘penna’ for feather. The heraldic plume referring to the use of long wing- and tail-feathers on crests and other heraldic devices: at this point my classic lessons cease – in this post at least!

Swans are amazing creatures – they are the largest members of the duck family and are among the largest flying birds – reaching a length of over five feet (nearly 2 metres) and weighing up to 50 pounds. Their wingspans can be almost 10 feet (3 metres), while compared to the closely related geese they are much larger in size and have proportionally larger feet and necks.

The largest species include the mute swan, trumpeter swan and whooper swan – the mute swan I posted on their royal connections in my recent story on Swan Upping. The whooper swan is also called the tundra swan denoting its wintering ground. Generally they are found in temperate environments, rarely occurring in the tropics, and they do not occur in Africa.

In South America they have evolved to become the Black-necked Swan their largest native waterfowl, but which is smaller than its white or black cousins on the other continents. They are widespread and common throughout the southern part of South America, and fortunately are able to find wetland sanctuaries throughout the region.

The black swans found in southern Australia are mostly black feathered birds, with white flight feathers, and having a bright red bill. It is also smaller than its northern cousin, and is unlike any other Australian bird.

The Australian black swan is the musical swan with a far reaching bugle-like sound, called either on the water or in flight, as well as a range of softer crooning notes. It can also whistle, especially when disturbed while breeding and nesting.

All swans are attractive birds so no wonder they have been used in heraldry throughout the aeons, epochs, eras, and recent times. They feature in mythology – Greek, Norse, Irish, Finnish – in Latin American literature, in fables – The Ugly Duckling; they are revered in Hinduism, and are compared to saintly persons whose chief characteristic is to be in the world without getting attached to it, just as a swan's feather does not get wet although it is in water ... and many many other tales – for another day ...

Thank you Mr Postman for delivering this short story to my mother – I’m off to see some friends who migrate too – spending half the year here and half in South Africa .. so I’m having a quick visit to catch up on the South African news and just generally have twenty four hours away .. not long – I’m going near Goodwood .. yesterday’s post ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Glorious Goodwood - Gloomy Goodwood

It is summer – is it not? Well in the northern hemisphere it is meant to be, but the powers that be have decided to downgrade our barbeque heatwave to British summertime blues. Such is life here in England, it is the holiday season and the weather closes in.

'Glorious Goodwood’ not only offers the very best in top-class horse racing, but is one of the highlights of the social summer season – famously described by King Edward VII as ‘a garden party with racing tacked on’.

With a description such as “Glorious Goodwood”, you would think that glorious would be the word of the moment – well no .. thick foggy mist and relentless rain would be more appropriate .. but the English race on. The jockeys could not see each other as they raced, nor could the punters, nor the race commentator, the television crew switched between the gloomy shots.


Midday wins the Nassau Stakes during the Glorious Goodwood Festival, despite heavy rain. From Gulf News – courtesy Associated Press

August 1st used to be our summer bank holiday before it was moved to the end of August in 1965 and the weather was considered to begin ‘without a cloud, and the sun shone from dawn to evening’ – now that would be glorious!

Rain, rain go away, come again another day .. this nursery rhyme, when Elizabeth I reigned, refers to the August 1588 invasion by the Spanish Armada; when Philip II learned of the result, he declared, “I sent the Armada against men, not God’s winds and waves”, after the stormy weather had scattered the Spanish fleet.

Goodwood house is a magnificent Regency mansion in the middle of beautiful wooded parkland at the foot of the South Downs, West Sussex, occupied today by the present Duke of Richmond and his young family.

In 1697 the 1st Duke purchased the Goodwood estate of 1,000 acres, with a modest 17th century house which he wanted to use as a hunting lodge. The 2nd Duke added a classical wing to the house, built follies and a smaller hunting lodge within the grounds.

Both the 1st and 2nd Dukes became the patron of that quintessential English game of cricket, developing it in Sussex and it is almost certain that the 1st Duke was involved in the earliest known major match, which took place in 1697, being the first cricket match to be reported by the press, with a prize of 50 guineas. The 2nd Duke inherited his father’s love of sport.

The 3rd Duke (1735 – 1806), as Ambassador in Paris, had acquired fabulous newly made fine French furniture, Gobelin tapestries and Sèvres porcelain. During his tenure this third Duke increased the estate size to 17,000 acres, added a new wing and then due to a fire destroying his London home, once again increased the size of the house, and added a stable block.

The 3rd Duke added the third great sporting association with Goodwood opening the family seat in 1802 to horse racing, which has grown into Glorious Goodwood today.

During the 17th and 18th centuries a magnificent collection of English paintings was amassed, including wonderful views of London by Canaletto, and magnificent sporting scenes by George Stubbs, England’s most famous animal painter. The works of art, together with some books from the well-stocked library, are rotated and displayed, while the house, despite being a family home, is open to the public for 60 days a year, and hosts public events.

Today there is also a motor racing circuit, which started out life as a World War II airfield, before being absorbed into the Goodwood estate, with motor racing starting in 1948 and continuing until 1966. The Goodwood Festival of Speed or Goodwood Revival celebrates that golden era of motor sport from the 1950s and 1960s, for exceptional wheel-to-wheel racing around a classic circuit, untouched by the modern world reliving those glory days.

The Dukes’ other favourite sports include flying, shooting and golf – all available within this fantastic parkland estate, now consisting of just over 11,000 acres, which has kept up with the times improving its fortunes as generations pass and as new opportunities occur.

Driving through the South Downs, in and around the Goodwood parkland in the sunny summer days that we would expect, rather than the thick foggy, misty day of racing we had yesterday, we would reckon on seeing fields of ripening wheat, barley, corn surrounded by green hedgerows, pockets of spinneys, bridleways, stretching away into distant hills and valleys, through avenues of trees, round corners up hills and down dales, through picturesque villages – where oh where has our English summer gone?

Courtesy the The Independent –

David Ashdown: A band warms the crowd up before racing begins

This is one estate and family that have kept their fortunes intact and offer us the chance to experience many sports, or to visit their historical house and take a tour through time – starting with the nursery rhyme .. rain rain go away come again another day .. appropriate for this weekend’s weather, and just over one hundred years before the present Duke’s family bought the Goodwood estate .. the weather still rules our English life!

Thank you Mr Postman for delivering this letter my mother will love the descriptions of the Sussex countryside, together with the sporting options as she loves the outdoors and her sports .. we will enjoy sharing these memories especially the nursery rhyme and its origins ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Painted Ladies of the World?

Amazing what epicurean delights painted ladies like to eat or breed on – cudweeds, thistles, lupins, mallow, stinging nettles and everlastings .. so they are no longer ever lasting! Butterfly migration stopped the trains in 1889. Escaping from the mountains they are as determined as prisoners to find new lands, to thrive and produce new generations before their time is up.

Painted Lady, Portugal

Painted Lady Butterflies have been prolific here in England this year – we were alerted to be on the lookout for the first waves in late April or early May .. a flock, a wave, a congregation – call it what you will .. travelled to this part of the south coast where William the Conqueror of 1066 fame landed at Pevensey, before he waged war on Harold and took control of England, changing the course of western history.

These wonderful stained-glass flutterers, just one of the many, many varieties of the lepidopterous order of insects, which have four scale-covered wings, are found on all the continents except Antarctica.

Our English ones come up from the Atlas mountains in Morocco, flying over the Mediterranean and English Channel, on northwards to the Scottish islands and some on to Iceland. How do they do it, why do they do it?

Carduus crispus, (Papilio cardui Linnaeus, 1758) Common Thistle

We have the first wave in Spring, which lay their eggs on the common thistle, asters, borage, forget-me-not, hollyhocks, the legume family flowers to name a few. The caterpillars feed on a variety of host plants of the daisy family, especially Carduus crispus, (Papilio cardui Linnaeus, 1758) as implied by the species name cardui – Latin for “of the thistle” ; while the adults drink nectar from a variety of wildflowers, more commonly the favoured thistle, buddleia (butterfly bush), asters, tickseed sunflowers and zinnias.

This first wave are about to hatch from their chrysalides in the pupal stage of butterflies. The term is derived from the metallic-gold-colouration found in the pupae of many butterflies referred to by the Greek term (chrysos) for gold. Interestingly, as we are most familiar with this type of pupae, most chrysalides are attached to a surface by a Velcro-like arrangement, spun by the caterpillars, of a silken pad and a set of hooks.

Australian Painted Lady

Australian Painted Ladies are mostly confined to Australia, but have been wind-swept to the islands to the east, including New Zealand. During spring adult butterflies migrate south in large numbers from Queensland and New South Wales, surprisingly in 1889 this migration was so large that trains were unable to generate sufficient traction because of the large numbers of painted ladies resting on the tracks. The perennial (Ammobium Alatum) Winged Everlasting is an important food-plant for the Australian caterpillars.

American Painted Ladies live in flowery habitats, usually in the mountains, but are also found in Madeira, the Canary Islands and occasionally in southern Europe, their larvae feeding on the daisy family, especially the cudweeds (Gnaphalium), which have several common names, including ladies' tobacco, California rabbit tobacco, California cudweed, and California everlasting.

Gnaphalium californicum - California everlasting

There’s also a West Coast Lady, which is one of three North American species of brush-footed butterflies, known colloquially as the “painted ladies”. This particular butterfly occurs throughout much of the western United States and south western Canada.

Brush-footed West Coast Lady

Painted Lady Butterflies, as you would expect, need to rest as they go on their migration route, and not wanting to miss a trick .. they breed on the march. The eggs take three to five days to hatch, while the caterpillar takes seven to eleven days to turn into a chrysalis, and then another seven to eleven days to become a butterfly, four to six days after emerging it is old enough to mate, and then the cycle starts all over again.

Life cycle of the Painted Lady – by Mohsen Arooni, Iran - via Wikipedia

They live between 30 and 40 days, because after about three weeks they are tired and tattered .. a fully fulfilled life cycle, however butterflies are early barometers of habitat change occurring within a year.

Migrating such distances, 1,000 to 1,700 miles .. they’ve been found on off-shore oil rigs, which are about 100 miles from the coast of Scotland .. they don’t tend to stay in one area long, breeding as they go – thousands of caterpillars were seen hanging from hedgerows and forming ‘curtains’ on the Iberian peninsula.

However they are incapable of surviving our winter, as they do not hibernate like our English native butterflies, why do they come, where do they go, how do they get back? Do they do the reverse trip, called by their ancestral roots – does anyone know?! We’re about to get a billion short-lived baby boomers .. can we track their journey home .. will the Atlas mountains welcome them back .. perhaps our internet savvy generations can tell us the last call of the wild for these Painted Ladies.

Thanks for visiting today Mr Postman, my poor mother wasn’t too well last night, but she still seems to come up fighting and despite having a fit, a common occurrence after a stroke, she seems fine. She’s had a busy week as she’s been awake a lot more than usual and has wanted me to read to her .. sometimes for two hours .. and she absorbs and comments on the information .. so nothing wrong there then! We look forward to your visit tomorrow .. I hope you will have a drier day for your deliveries.

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Is this a petrified octopus with tentacles growing skywards ...?

Upside Down Tree, Monkey Bread Tree – the strange case of the tree which grew the wrong way – or did it? The Bushmen believed that the Baobab had offended God and, in revenge, God had planted the tree upside down, or each animal on being given a tree to plant – the hyena decided to plant his the wrong way up .. so the roots waggle in the air.

Baobab tree

The world is made up of many strange sites and the Bottle Tree another name for the Baobab, is certainly one of them. 



They are iconic trees – you cannot miss them when you see them in the bush. They grow naturally in Mauritius, where six species remain, one native species each in Africa and Australia, however they are now grown in other countries or areas – India and Florida being two.

The undisputed monarch of all the Savannah trees of Africa. Even a single isolated baobab dominates its surroundings with its bulky form and unique character. In winter, without their leaves, baobabs resemble petrified octopuses with tentacles groping towards the sky. The size of the baobab varies as they have the ability to store thousands of litres of water in their trunk (up to 120,000 litres or 32,000 US gallons) to see them through the drought periods.

Baobab Flower

Surprisingly the tree, in Spring, bears its heavy white flowers at night, probably so the bush babies (nocturnal primates) can benefit from the sources of nutrition, or so that a species of fruit bat is attracted to the carrion scent of the pendulous stamens ensuring pollination occurs.

Almost every part of the tree is useful to man. The young leaves have a high calcium content and can be boiled and eaten as a vegetable, similar to spinach. The pollen of the flowers yields an excellent glue, and the seeds are rich in protein, calcium, oil and phosphates, and are pleasant to suck, or can be ground and roasted to make a palatable coffee.

An opened pod

The fruit pod contains tartaric acid (used in sherbet), while the fruit is nutritious possibly having more vitamin C than oranges and exceeding the calcium content of cow's milk, this is the tree of life .. with many more uses, including making ropes or paper from its spongy wood.

Even the tree itself offers shelter and water for hundreds of birds, insects, small and large mammals of the African Savannah, though until relatively recent times it also offered shelter for humans – the Bushmen of the Kalahari used the trees for shelter; the pioneers used the trunks to live in and as workshops, or hiding places made for local thieves.

Artefacts have been found in the naturally hollowed out stems dating back hundreds of years, while it is known that the tree hollows naturally from the inside after about 1,000 years but the young baobabs are so unlike their revered elders there was concern that they were endangered, fortunately not so .. and as Hugh Glen, a government botanist, once said “the problem with the baobab is that it doesn’t get handsome until it’s about 800 years old”.



The bigbaobab website states that carbon dating has been used to estimate the Big Baobab’s age at ± 6000 years. To put this in perspective the tree is possibly older than the Giza Pyramids and was certainly here thousands of years before the birth of Jesus Christ. When the first leaves sprouted the Sahara Desert was still lush and green and our Iron Age ancestors were roaming the land.

Sunland's Baobab

The farm on which this big baobab is found is now a safari lodge and offers five gorgeous thatched” jungalows” with open air en-suite bathrooms accommodate 17 people. Have a shower under the glorious southern night sky and its millions of African stars! I thought you’d like the description ... especially "jungalows".

Sunland’s Baobab is 22 meters high, and is some 47 meters in circumference. It is still (and is likely to remain so) "the record holder for the species", according to the SA Dendrological Society.

At Sunland's - in the bar

In 1993 the van Heerdens cleared out the hollow centre of the tree, removing masses of compost build up, to uncover the floor about a metre below ground level. In the process they found evidence of both Bushmen and Voortrekkers (pioneers), attesting to the historical importance of the tree.

They squared off a natural vent in the trunk to make a door and installed a railway sleeper pub inside the trunk, complete with draft beer, seats, a music system and space for nearly 60 people. A wine cellar has been installed in a second hollow, with a constant temperature of 22° C, ventilated by natural vents.

Photo courtesy of Barcroft Media and the Daily Mail - Fancy a pint in a bar that is inside a tree? ©

So there we have it a real tree of life .. nurturing us humans probably for over a 1,000 years, nourishing, feeding and watering masses of wildlife from the night time bats, to the tiny insects to the baboons, monkeys and elephants who depend on its fruit ... 

... and which will go on nurturing us for many years to come with the authorities of the world anxious to find new remedies and uses from our natural flora and fauna. Welcome to the world of the upside down tree!

Thanks for visiting Mr Postman, my mother always loved this tree and if the pub had been open when I lived there, my mother and I would definitely have been there sleeping under the stars and having a drink in a tree. We have had a good three days when my mother has been awake and interested in being read to .. even today to my surprise, tonight she was asleep: I can finish this before I go out .. perhaps!

PS: the Baobab Fruit: how the Eden Project is supporting Rural Harvesters in Malawi and southern Africa
http://www.edenproject.com/eden-story/our-ethos/baobab-fruit-supporting-rural-harvesters-in-malawi 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

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