Burchellia bubalina

Apart from the several flowering trees that are brightening our landscape, here are four interesting trees I have taken note of over the past week. The first one is a very old tree showing the scars of its long life.

This sturdy old tree grows next to a country road I frequent. It is covered with lichen and has produced several tangled branches during its lifetime. Like many large trees, it seems to represent solidity and a determination to face all obstacles.

Then there is a rather pre-historic looking tree that grows on the hills around Grahamstown, the Oldenbergia grandi.

I have featured the flowers of the Burchellia bubalina before. This is a young bush – one of many blooming at this time of the year: along the road, next to rocky outcrops, and on the local hills.

Lastly, here is a windswept tree growing on the edge of the Rietberg that forms one of the hilly borders of our town.

One can find beauty even in the driest periods and a particularly beautiful evergreen shrub blooming in the veld at the moment is the Wild Pomegranate (Burchellia bubalina), which belongs to a part of the coffee family called Rubiaceae. These shrubs are found in forested habitats, as well as in montane grassland and scrub. This one is growing on a rocky outcrop on top of the Rietberg. Note the way the short main stem is twisted and multi-stemmed.

The bright orange to red flowers appear from early spring to mid-summer.

The copious nectar in these flowers attracts birds, butterflies and other insects.

The tree was named after W.J. Burchell (1782-1863), an early English explorer, naturalist and artist who worked at Kew Gardens. During his travels in South Africa in 1810 he is said to have collected about 50 000 specimens which he took back to the UK. Bubalina means buff-coloured in Latin which is possibly a reference to the yellowish hairs found on the young stems. The Afrikaans name for this shrub, Buffelshoring, refers to the buffalo-like horns of the old calyx lobes on the fruit.