Gathering Facts for Storytelling

Dear Storytellers,

Today, we will gather information to help

us write our own folktales.

We will look at setting and characters in the savanna in Africa.

Savanna

Grassland with widely scattered trees and shrubs.

The Serengeti is a savanna in Kenya and Tanzania.

Plants and trees of the savanna can live for long periods of time when there is little or no rain. They have long tap roots that can reach deep into the earth for water.

Some have thick bark and trunks to store water. The leaves drop off during winter to conserve water.

The savanna is covered by grasses. There are many kinds of trees that will grow in some areas of the savanna. They include pine trees, palm trees and Acacia trees.

Savanna ClimateThe savanna has a climate that is wet and dry at different times of the year.

In the savanna, there is a dry season, which is in the winter. During the dry season, most of the plants shrivel up and die. Some rivers and streams dry up. Most of the animals migrate to find food and water.

Savannas get all their rain in the summer months. In the wet season, all of the plants are lush and the rivers flow freely. The animals migrate back to graze. In West Africa the rainy season begins in May. From December to February, hardly any rain falls at all.

Mount Kilimanjaro

Mount Kilimanjaro

Mount Kilimanjaro

Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria

Elephants

Lions

Antelope

Acacia Tree

Acacia Tree

The acacia tree is a small to average sized thorn tree of the African savanna. It can grow up to 65 feet tall. The flowers are yellow or cream colored and grown on spikes just above the thorns.

The flowers turn to see pods about eight inches long. Many animals eat from the acacia tree.

Acacia Tree with giraffe

Acacia tree thorns

Acacia Tree flowers

Baobab Tree

Boabab Tree

The baobab tree is found in the savannas of Africa. It can grow up to 85 feet tall! It can live for several thousand years. The baobabhas no leaves for nine months of the year.

Some people say that the baobab tree looks like it has been picked out of the ground and stuffed back in, upside-down. The baobab looks like this for a reason: in the wet season, water is stored in its thick, corky trunk for nine dry months.

Baobab Tree

Fireball Lily

Fireball Lily

The fireball lily blooms from one to two weeks in late summer to early fall. Plants in full flower may stand nearly 4 feet high. Star-shaped measure up to 10 inches across.

Candelabra Tree

Candelabra Tree

The candelabra tree can grow up to 40 feet tall. The branches all grow from one trunk and look like little cactuses, giving it the shape of a candelabra. It has little yellow flowers in the winter.

The candelabra is beautiful, but poisonous. If a drop of the white sap comes in contact with the skin, a blister will form.

If it touches the eyes, it can cause blindness and the smell can cause breathing problems. The sticky poison along the sharp spines makes it so that animals do not feed on it.

Jarrah Tree (Eucalyptus)

The jarrah tree usually grows about 100 feet tall with a large trunk that is long, straight and has no branches on it. The jarrah tree is tough, grayish brown with vertical grooves, which shed in long strips.

Jarrah wood makes very durable furniture and building materials for wharves, bridges and railroad ties. Before modern asphalt, the Streets of Berlin and London were paved with blocks made from the jarrah tree.

Another use of jarrah tree is honey. Every other year when the jarrah tree flowers, beekeepers have their bees pollinate the tree and make wonderful honey.

To some animals, the jarrah tree is very useful. Birds and other animals use the large holes in the jarrah tree to nest. Bees make hives in the holes in the tree trunks and nectar from the flowers is a food source for insects, marsupials and birds.

Jarrah tree

Elephant Grass

Elephant grass is tall. It grows in clumps up to ten feet tall. In the African savanna, it grows along lake beds and rivers where the soil is rich. Local farmers cut the grass for their animals and carry it home in huge piles on their backs or on carts.

It is greenish-yellow or purple in color. The stems are coarse and are about 1 inch thick near the base. The leaves are 2 to 3 feet long. The edges of the leaves are razor sharp. This makes elephant grass nearly impossible for people and animals to walk through. Many bird species make their homes in the clumps.

Your characters must be…

• Lion

• Elephant

• Giraffe

• Zebra