Species
+

Adansonia grandidieri Baill.

Grandidier's baobab, giant baobab

Climate known 75 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Adansonia grandidieri is the biggest and most famous of Madagascar's six species of baobabs. It is sometimes known as Grandidier's baobab or the giant baobab. In French it is called Baobab malgache. The local name is renala or reniala. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Adansonia grandidieri”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Adansonia

Adansonia is a genus of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs or boababs. The eight species of Adansonia are native to Africa, Australia, and Madagascar but have also been introduced to other regions of the world, including Barbados, where several of the baobabs there are suspected to have originated from Africa. Other baobabs have been introduced to Asia. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Adansonia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Malvaceae
Described by
Baill.
Native to
Madagascar
Wild records
209 in range· 65 open

At a glance

Warmest month
33°C
Nov, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
838mm/yr
5 wet months · peak Jan 301 mm (CHELSA)
Light
29–46DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, July to September in the northern hemisphere (January to March at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 838 mm a year, wettest January at 301 mm, driest June at 1 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 46 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, July to September in the northern hemisphere (January to March at the habitat, southern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (646 mm of 838 mm) falls in January to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 27.5 °C against a yearly mean of 25.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: July to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 838 mm a year, wettest January at 301 mm, driest June at 1 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

838 mm a year at the habitat, 646 mm of it January to March. Wettest month January at 301 mm, driest June at 1 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 477 mm to 998 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 46 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 46 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 27, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 14.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 14.7 °C, the absolute minimum 11.6 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 17.8 °C in July (across the envelope cells 16.6 °C to 19.1 °C), warmest day 32.5 °C in November (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 29 °C in Jul to 33 °C in Nov; mean night from 18 °C in Jul to 24 °C in Jan. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 838 mm of rain a year, most in Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 19 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 11.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 37.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°40°37.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)11.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 29–46RH 56–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 19 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C31 / 30–3130 / 30–3131 / 30–3232 / 30–3330 / 28–3129 / 26–3029 / 26–3030 / 27–3131 / 28–3332 / 29–3433 / 30–3432 / 30–33
Night °C24 / 23–2524 / 23–2524 / 23–2523 / 22–2420 / 19–2218 / 17–2018 / 17–1918 / 17–2020 / 19–2121 / 21–2323 / 22–2424 / 23–25
Rain mm301 / 172–330231 / 114–269114 / 56–13918 / 15–2410 / 8–121 / 1–81 / 1–71 / 1–47 / 5–810 / 7–1736 / 26–59108 / 84–136
DLI38 / 37–4238 / 37–4139 / 38–4036 / 35–3631 / 30–3129 / 27–2930 / 28–3034 / 34–3540 / 39–4144 / 43–4646 / 44–4843 / 42–47
RH %65 / 63–6766 / 63–6764 / 61–6560 / 58–6259 / 56–6156 / 54–5956 / 53–5858 / 54–6158 / 55–6359 / 56–6260 / 58–6262 / 62–63

Each figure is the median across the 19 grid cells holding the 25 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2205:4488 (-20.275, 44.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 11.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 37.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 19 distinct grid cells holding the 25 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2205:4488 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -20.50_44.375, lapse-corrected -47 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 20 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMadagascar
Kew's description“tree” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-20.33, 44.467 · in the densest population, 201 records (96% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 209 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 65 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 4 km away. 5 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 184 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 209 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Adansonia grandidieriAdansonia grandidieriAdansonia grandidieriAdansonia grandidieriAdansonia grandidieriAdansonia grandidieriAdansonia grandidieriAdansonia grandidieri

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Ioannis Magouras, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) amantedarmanin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Rosario Douglas, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Adansonia grandidieri, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Positive biodiversity-productivity relationship predominant in global forests
Jingjing Liang, Thomas W. Crowther, Nicolas Picard, Susan K. Wiser (2016) · Science
The evolution of bat pollination: a phylogenetic perspective
Theodore H. Fleming, Cullen Geiselman, W. John Kress (2009) · Annals of Botany
Governance for the Conservation of Nature
Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend, Rosemary Hill (2015) · ANU Press eBooks
Modeling impacts of climate change on the potential distribution of six endemic baobab species in Madagascar
Jun‐Nan Wan, Ndungu J. Mbari, Shengwei Wang, Bing Liu (2020) · Acta Botanica Yunnanica
Lipase and Its Unique Selectivity: A Mini-Review
Jun‐Young Park, Kyung‐Min Park (2022) · Journal of Chemistry
Transitions between biomes are common and directional in Bombacoideae (Malvaceae)
Alexander Zizka, Jefferson Carvalho-Sobrinho, R. Toby Pennington, Luciano Paganucci de Queiroz (2020) · Journal of Biogeography
Vulnerability of baobab species to climate change and effectiveness of the protected area network in Madagascar: Towards new conservation priorities
Ghislain Vieilledent, Cyrille Cornu, Aida Cuní‐Sanchez, Jean-Michel Leong Pock-Tsy (2013) · Biological Conservation
Bombacaceae: A phytochemical review
John Refaat, Samar Y. Desoky, Mahmoud A. Ramadan, Mohamed Kamel (2012) · Pharmaceutical Biology
Taking into account local practices and indigenous knowledge in an emergency conservation context in Madagascar
Chloé Marie, Nicole Sibelet, Michel Dulcire, Minah Rafalimaro (2009) · Biodiversity and Conservation
The rise of baobab trees in Madagascar
Jun‐Nan Wan, Shengwei Wang, Andrew R. Leitch, Ilia J. Leitch (2024) · Nature
Specialized use of pollen vectors by Caesalpinia gilliesii, a legume species with brush-type flowers
Marcela Moré, Alicia N. Sérsic, Andrea A. Cocucci (2006) · Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Adansonia 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 11 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.