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8 plants worth knowing

Mali

Mali stretches from the Sahara in the north, through the dry Sahel, to wooded savannas in the south. The heart of the country is the Niger, which in its middle course forms a vast inner delta – a mosaic of floodplains, rice fields and pastures – while the landscape of the south is dominated by baobabs, shea trees and néré, deliberately left standing by farmers among their fields.

Hover over a plant to see on the map where it grows.

where it grows

  1. African baobab 1

    tree

    African baobab

    Adansonia digitata

    The baobab is the emblematic tree of Malian villages – its powdered leaves thicken the sauce served with tô, the everyday millet porridge.
  2. Shea tree 2

    tree

    Shea tree

    Vitellaria paradoxa

    Mali is one of the largest producers of shea butter – the nuts are gathered and processed mainly by women in the south of the country.
  3. Apple-ring acacia 3

    tree · Symbol tree of the city of Ségou

    Apple-ring acacia

    Faidherbia albida

    Ségou is called the “city of 4,444 balanzans” – a tree that sheds its leaves in the rainy season, just as everything else turns green.
  4. Néré 4

    tree

    Néré

    Parkia biglobosa

    Fermented néré seeds make soumbala – an aromatic seasoning without which Malian cooking is hard to imagine.
  5. African rice 5

    crop

    African rice

    Oryza glaberrima

    African rice was domesticated about 3,000 years ago in the inner Niger Delta – one of only two cultivated rice species in the world.
  6. Upland cotton 6

    crop

    Upland cotton

    Gossypium hirsutum

    Cotton, known in Mali as “white gold”, is the country’s most important export after gold and the livelihood of millions of farmers.
  7. Pearl millet 7

    crop

    Pearl millet

    Cenchrus americanus

    Pearl millet is Mali’s most important cereal – its flour is cooked into tô, couscous and sweet dégué.
  8. Senegal mahogany 8

    tree

    Senegal mahogany

    Khaya senegalensis

    Spreading caïlcédrats shade the streets of Bamako and Ségou, and their bitter bark has been a fever remedy for centuries.