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10-NOV-2013 Dick Keely

Giraffe Chocolate

Chief's Island, Okavango, Botswana

Kigelia africana, occurs throughout tropical Africa from Eritrea and Chad south to northern South Africa, and west to Senegal and Namibia.
The genus name comes from the Mozambican Bantu name, kigeli-keia.
The common names sausage tree and cucumber tree refer to the long, sausage-like fruit.
This fruit is also known as 'Giraffe Chocolate' in the Okavango – because giraffes have a particular fondness for it.
Its name in Afrikaans Worsboom also means Sausage Tree, and its Arabic name means "the father of kit bags".
It grows as a tree up to 20 m tall. The bark is grey and smooth at first, peeling on older trees.
It can be as thick as 6 mm on a 15-cm branch. The wood is pale brown or yellowish, undifferentiated and not prone to cracking.
Sausage trees are the preferred trees to make the dug-out canoes (makers) widely used in the Okavango delta.
Reference: Wikipedia.


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laine12-Mar-2014 12:18
The sausage tree grows in some areas here too...the best I saw was at Rockhampton ,Qld...no Giraffes, but there were chimps in the zoo next door :)
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