The West is the realm of baobabs of which Madagascar numbers 7 species against 2 for Australia and only one for the whole of Africa. Here, the vegetation takes unexpected shapes such as the umbrella pine euphorbs, creepers whose stems show only in the rainy season, or the pachypodium which calls in mind the picture of a long -necked bottle. 

In the bush in the South, the didieraceans take the form of giant cactuses which may become impenetrable forests. As for Pachypodium, either they creep on the ground, or erect their bole 5or 6 metres up to the sky. The bead –covered branches of  the Euphorbia Alluandi account for their well justified nickname “sausage-tree”!. As one army officer from the early days of French pacification said , “ this world is unreal, not a plant, not a tree that looks familiar. One is walking in a forest, but a forest of marine dreams, a forest of leafless trees”. However, beware not to represent the South as a phantasmagorical wilderness reserved for those in search of strong sensations! Of all the 38 species of Aloe, the Aloe Vaombe is perhaps one of the most beautiful plants of Madagascar. It may bear as many as one hundred clusters of bright red flowers that ablaze the barren surroundings.

In the east and northeast forests, one has to open up one’s way through vegetation springing up from everywhere, from the rocks, ground or trunks and branches. In this area, more than one thousand varieties of orchids, of which some have memorable little anecdotes attached to them, have been numbered. Studying the Angraecum Sesquipedale which has a 35cm long spur, Alfred Russel Wallace came to the conclusion that there surely exists an insect  with a proboscis that long to gather the nectar. It is only forty years later that the butterfly with the famous proboscis rolled under its head was discovered. It was named Xanthopan Morgani Praedicta as a tribute to the conviction of Wallace…