TY - JOUR T1 - The demise of the largest and oldest African baobabs JF - Nature Plants Y1 - 2018 A1 - Patrut, Adrian A1 - Woodborne, Stephan A1 - Patrut, Roxana T. A1 - Rakosy, Laszlo A1 - Lowy, Daniel A. A1 - Hall, Grant A1 - von Reden, Karl F. AB - The African baobab is the biggest and longest-living angiosperm tree. By using radiocarbon dating we identified the stable architectures that enable baobabs to reach large sizes and great ages. We report that 9 of the 13 oldest and 5 of the 6 largest individuals have died, or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died, over the past 12 years; the cause of the mortalities is still unclear. VL - 4 UR - http://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0170-5 IS - 7 ER -