Little garden at traffic island It will be handed over to the council

The Lions Club of Penang Light has allocated RM15,000 for the beautification project in con-junction with its ninth anniversary celebra-tion. 

The club is working together with its sister clubs from Taiwan, Australia, Kuala Lumpur, Thailand and Singapore on the project. 

Project chairman Catherine Heah said the club mooted the project to complement efforts by the Government to promote envi-ronmental conservation awareness.  

She said they had chosen the location for the project because of the significance of the Baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) which was believed to have been planted in 1871 by Captain Tristran C. S. Speedy, a British army officer employed to keep peace between two Chinese secret societies. 

“We want to conserve the heritage Baobab by beautifying the vicinity of the tree with a simple yet artistic landscaping design which blends in with the environment,” she told a press conference in Komtar recently. 

Heah said the club had chosen greenery for the landscape so that it would complement and not overshadow the prominence of the historical tree. 

She said the project started three weeks ago and was 90% completed. 

She said it would be handed over to the Penang Municipal Council by state exe-cutive councillor Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan on Friday after which the council would be responsible for the maintenance of the traffic island. 

The Baobab tree, which is indigenous to the semi-arid part of sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar, can grow up to 25m in height and can live for over a thousand years.  

It is leafless for nine months of the year and is known as the “upside down tree” as it looks as if it had been uprooted and stuffed back in the ground upside down.