Sausage Tree (English version)－kathymih 的部落格

Two days after posting [A fool's trip to UQ], C stirred up his sister - a biology teacher, G advised me to email directly to UQ's Agriculture Dept, my Kiwi garage mechanic volunteered to inquire his Botany professor, and S sent out SOS message to her friends worldwide seeking to solve the question I raised. It was this common desire to solve the puzzle that sped up the emerging answer: sausage tree. In acknowledging the passionate pursuit of knowledge from my keen friends, I reckon it's obligatory for me to share whatever I've learned from it.

Originated from tropical Africa, the genus name Kigelia pinnata (or Kigelia Africana) got its common name Sausage Tree from its sausage-like fruit. The fruit is a woody berry from 30 to 100cm long and weighs 5~10kg. It can cause head injury or car damage if you're unlucky! The fruit scattered around when I visited, no bird-pecked marks, presumably not tasty.

樹番薯落滿地

In fact, the fresh fruit is poisonous and strongly purgative to human. It can be used as luxative or worm killer. However, it is consumed by several species of mammals, including Baboons, Bushpigs, Savannah Elephants, Giraffes, Hippopotamuses, monkeys, and porcupines. The seeds are dispersed in their dung, then eaten by Brown Parrots. It dawned on me those herbivorous giant mammals must have their secret dish eluded by others. To be big one has to learn from the ocean by embracing all rivers. The clever elephant will even buttress its head against the tree while grasping tight with its trunk, the fruit will fall off after a few shake-up by the giant. Apparently it's easier for the elephant to pick up food from ground than holding high a fatigued trunk. I wonder if the olive collector, a harvest machine invented by Italians, was inspired by elephant? (see the ending paragraph in my other article Hastings http://kathymih.pixnet.net/blog/post/43666864-hastings)

Australian parks introduced exotic plants to showcase the world of botany. Cockatoo, one of its prominent birds, is a favourite gourmand for the sausage seed.

palm cockatoo short-billed black cockatoo sulphur-crested cockatoo

University of Queensland claims their campus to be 'a living museum of tree' and plants sausage trees by UQ Lakes bus stop. I was fooled into rummaging through books of Aussie native trees for a neverland answer!

UQ Lakes公車站旁臘腸樹

"The tree at the bus stop is Kigelia Africana (sausage tree) native to Africa. The fruit is a favourite for Hippopotamuses." - answer given by Shane Biddle, Senior Supervisor Grounds, Property & Facilities Division, UQ

Flowers are bell-shaped, orange to reddish or purplish green. They flower by night and wither by day, indicating their reliance on pollination by bats, which visit them for pollen and nectar. The video clip shows a sausage tree forest in Tainan, Taiwan.

In African, the fruit is believed to be a cure for a wide range of ailments, from rheumatism, snakebites, evil spirits, syphilis, and even tornadoes (Watkins 1975). I guess tornadoes look like flying monsters and thus counted as evil spirits. Similar customs can be found in Chinese dragon boat festival. An alcoholic beverage similar to beer is also made from Sausage fruit. Some African women mix the fruit with other plants to make a facial care product. Others treat it as a sacred tree where important meetings will be called under its shade. In Zimbabwe if someone got lost or passed away in a foreign country, the family would bury a sausage fruit in the missing person's place.

In Zambia's Lower Zambezi National Park one can stay at the popular safari resort Sausage Tree Camp and enjoy a peaceful encounter with wild elephant, lion and leopard. Enjoy the rhythmic African music here!