SOMETHING will have to get decorated this Christmas.

And baobabs are, second to banyans, my favourite tree, I’ve decided.

I wish I could explain how weird baobabs are. They’re bulbous, in the trunk; and then taper up before branching out, and each branch is bulbous, and ends in skinny little branchlets, and each branchlet may or may not have a fruit hanging from it. The fruit, true to the baobab’s theme, is bulbous, and from a distance it looks like the tree is full of bats.

But every baobab, despite this basic template, looks a completely different shape to every other one. They are the WEIRDEST trees, second to none.