Bonsai ghaf

When we travel through the desert or foothills in the UAE, we often come across umbrella-shaped evergreen trees with solid trunks supporting a thick foliage on the crown.

The shape of these ghaf Prosopis cineraria trees is not the result of some deft work by a gardener but that of camels.
Camels eat the leaves of these trees that fall within their range resulting in the tree having this shape.

However, one day in the Digdagha area of Ras Al Khaimah, I came across some dwarf trees ranging from 50cm to 1.5 metres in height.

These had the proper shape of full-grown trees, though the leaves covering the circumference of the tree were tough, very small and guarded by thorns.

The inside of the branches had proper leaves that could not be cut or nibbled by camels, goats or sheep.

Although dwarf-like in appearance, they had the proper shape and features of a ghaf tree, with the exception of tough and strong branches of large natural ghaf trees.
I was really impressed by these camel-made natural bonsai ghaf.