African Flora 2013

CYCADS

Cycads (fourth row, first three photos - the fifth is a palm), are seed plants typically characterized by a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female. Cycads vary in size from having trunks from only a few centimeters to several meters tall. They typically grow very slowly and live very long, with some specimens known to be as much as 1,000 years old. Because of their superficial resemblance, they are sometimes confused with and mistaken for palms or ferns, but are only distantly related to either.

"Ancient Cycads Under Threat From Black Market"

Stephen Bevan in Pretoria
16 Mar 2008

The ancient and slow-growing plants are some of the longest-lived and most exotically beautiful in the world. They are also among the rarest.

With their tall stems and palm-like leaves, cycads - which evolved about 300 million years ago, even before the dinosaurs - are the oldest seed plants on earth.

Of South Africa's 38 species of cycad, three are extinct in the wild and the remainder have been pushed close to the brink by thieves.

Collectors in America and the Far East are prepared to pay up to $10,000 for a large specimen of a rare species, encouraging a flourishing but illegal trade in these plants - either plucked from the wild, or taken from nature reserves and botanical gardens.

South African Sycamore (Sycomore) Fig Tree

The first four photos in the sixth row show a 600 year old "Ficus Sycomorus," - native to Africa and is called the sycamore fig or the fig-mulberry (because the leaves resemble those of the Mulberry), sycamore, or sycomore, is a fig species that has been cultivated since ancient times. This species of fig is usually exclusively referred to as Sycomore.

Ficus sycomorus grows to 20 meters tall and 6 meters wide with a dense round crown of spreading branches. The leaves are heart-shaped with a round apex, 14 cm long by 10 cm wide, and arranged spirally around the twig. They are dark green above and lighter with prominent yellow veins below, and both surfaces are rough to the touch. The fruit is a large edible fig, 2–3 cm in diameter, ripening from buff-green to yellow or red. They are borne in thick clusters on long branchlets or the leaf axilThe bark is green-yellow to orange and exfoliates in papery strips to reveal the yellow inner bark. Like all other figs, it contains a latex.

<> <<>> <<<>>> <<>> <>

In the fourth row is a man-made tree/cell phone tower!

<> <<>> <<<>>> <<>> <>

Marula Fruit- Amarula Liqueur

The very last photo...three fallen marula fruit or "Sclerocarya birrea," the marula, (from Greek meaning "hard" and "nut" in reference to the stone inside the fleshy fruit), is a medium-sized dioecious tree, indigenous to the miombo woodlands of Southern Africa. The tree is a single stemmed tree with a wide spreading crown. It is characterized by a gray mottled bark. The tree grows up to 18 meters tall. The fruits are used in the liqueur Amarula. The distribution of this species throughout Africa and Madagascar has followed the Bantu in their migrations, as it has been an important item in their diet since time immemorial.

The fruits have a light yellow skin, with white flesh, rich in vitamin C – about 8 times the amount found in an orange – are succulent, tart with a strong and distinctive flavor. Inside is a walnut-sized, thick-walled stone. The seeds have a delicate nutty flavor and are much sought after by various animals in Southern Africa. In the movie "Animals Are Beautiful People" by Jamie Uys, released in 1974, some scenes portray elephants, warthogs and monkeys becoming intoxicated from eating fermented marula fruit. Later research showed that these scenes, at least in large animals were improbable and, in all probability, staged. Elephants would need a huge amount of fermented marulas to have any effect on them, and other animals prefer the ripe fruit. The amount of water drunk by elephants each day would also dilute the effect of the fruit to such an extent that they would not be affected by it.

Marula fruit is used to make Amarula liqueur.