General Info – summary

This evergreen Tree has smooth bark and may reach 16m high and bark may flake.  The simple, glossy and alternate or spirally arranged Leaves are glossy, dark green above and much lighter below.  They are elliptic, margins are entire, & the petiole has a pulvinus.  5-merous Flowers lack petals and the sepals are petal-like.  Female flowers have a compound pistil.  Inedible orange Fruit – 4-5 carpels + reniform seeds.

Description

Cola natalensis

SA Tree No. 478.

Common names: (Afr) Gladdekola, Knuppelhout, Suidelike Kola.  (Eng) Coshwood, Natal Cola, Southern Cola, Southern Coshwood, Wild Mango.  (isiZulu) Iphumbulu, Ithenenende, Umthenenende, Umqhosho.  (isiXhosa) Umtenenenda, Umthenenende, Umnqayana.

Family: Malvaceae. (Wild Pear, Gossypium – cotton and baobab family).  This family has about 240 genera and 4 200+ species.  Indigenous genera that have trees on this website includes Adansonia (baobab), Cola, DombeyaGrewia, Hibiscus, Sparrmannia and Sterculia.  The usually alternate Leaves of all members possess stipules and apart from Adansonia, remain simple.  Flowers are regular, bisexual or unisexual and have 5 petals (Sparrmannia africana has 4).  Petals are absent in Cola and Sterculia.  There are 5 to many stamens with filaments often united into a staminal tube.  This surrounds the superior Ovary with its simple Style and capitate or lobed Stigma.  Fruits are usually nuts, schizocarps or loculicidal capsules.

Name derivation: Cola an African common name.  natalensis from Kwa-Zulu Natal.  There are 2 species in southern Africa.  This plant can be confused with the second one – Cola greenwayi but the latter has brownish hairs on young branches, which are lacking in Cola natalensis.

Conservation: National Status: L C. (Least Concern).  Assessed: 2005 (W. Foden and L. Potter).

Tree

This small to medium sized, evergreen Tree (photo 217) is up to 16m high – usually less.  The smooth, dark grey Bark may flake into small patches on older stems (photo 215) and may be shallowly dimpled.  The Branches are crooked and only initially hairy.  Leaf scars are visible on youngish stems (photo 218 – under Fruit).

 

Leaves

On this evergreen tree, the alternate or spirally arranged Leaves tend to droop and are simple (have a single blade that may have incisions that are not deep enough to divide the leaf into leaflets).  The leaves have Margins that are entire (with a continuous margin, not in any way indented).  The Apex and Base both taper and may be sharply or bluntly tipped (photo 219.  The leaves are glossy, dark green above and much lighter below (photo 219).  The relatively narrow Blade is obovate to elliptic (Oval in outline, with narrowed to rounded ends and widest near the middle), dark green above, lighter below and up to 20 x 6,5cm.  Young leaves have a few stellate hairs.  The Midrib and lateral veins are visible and protrude below where 7 to 12 “pairs” lateral veins are visible.  They curve and join before reaching the margin.  The hairless dark Petiole (leaf stalk) is smooth, up to 5cm long, lightly swollen and may be darker just prior to joining the blade.  This is called a pulvinus (a joint-like thickening in the petiole or petiolule).  In Cola greenwayi the petiole is velvety.  Stipules (basal appendage of the petiole) are present but caducous (an organ or part which is easily detached and shed early) and are only visible on seedlings.  Fallen leaves leave a leaf scar (photo 218 under Fruit).

Flowers

The small pale yellow Flowers are unisexual and monoecious (separate male and female flowers present on the same tree) or dioecious (having male and female parts on separate plants).  Flowers have brown hairs and scales.  They may appear solitary, on short side branches or in small axillary clusters.  Flowers may be cauliflorous (the production of flowers and fruits directly from the branches or trunks of woody or tropical plants) on old wood.  Flowers lack Petals but the Calyx has petal-like externally pubescent (with dense fine, short, soft hairs – downy) Sepals – each about 6mm long.  These are coloured reddish-brown by the short soft rusty hairs.  The lobes extend almost to the base.  Male flowers are small.  Usually 10 Stamens are united into a tube around the rudimentary ovary.  The sessile Anthers are 2-thecous (have 2 pollen sacs) and dehisce through longitudinal slits.  In the Female flowers, there is a single compound Pistil (a unit of the Gynoecium, the female element of the flower, composed of the compound Ovary, Style and Stigma) and the sessile Ovaries are superior (said of an ovary that is free from the calyx or perianth).  There are up to 5 Styles present, each with stigmas that are club-shaped and recurved.  There is a ring of rudimentary Staminodes (sterile stamens) around the base of the ovary.  (Oct-Nov).

Fruit

Small hairs cover the orange-yellow Fruit, which is smooth, leathery and warty.  The fruit is up to 4 x 3cm (photo 218).  As the fruit matures the 4-5 carpels, (female reproductive structures that encloses the ovule/s) enlarge into separate, pod-like, hard, woody structures that resemble separate fruits.  The Seeds lack endosperm (the starch and oil-containing tissue of many seeds; often referred to as the albumen) and usually have 2 cotyledons (seed leaf; primary leaf or leaves in the embryo).  (Dec-Mar).

Distribution & Ecology

These Trees are not common but do occur naturally in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal e.g., Hawaan Forest near Umhlanga Rocks.  In northern KwaZulu-Natal, its place is taken by C. greenway.  Cola natalensis is also found in Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Mozambique and northwards into Tropical Africa.  It is common on mountainsides and evergreen forests from sea level to an altitude of 1 000m.  Black rhino eat both the Bark and Leaves.  The Paradise Skipper (Abantis paradisea) butterfly has quick darting flight habits and have larvae that feed on this plant.  Fruit flies (Ceratitis rosa) are often a problem on Cola natalensis.

Ethnobotany

The reddish Wood is hard and durable but straight pieces are rare.  The wood is used for making attractive walking sticks, small carvings, making disselbooms (the pole of a horse drawn wagon) and hut building.  The Fruit is inedible.

References

Boon, R. 2010. Pooley’s Trees of eastern South Africa. Flora and Fauna Publications Trust, Durban.

Coates Palgrave, M. 2002. Keith Coates Palgrave Trees of Southern Africa, edn 3. Struik, Cape Town.

Foden, W. & Potter, L. 2005. Cola natalensis Oliv. National Assessment: Red List of South African Plants version 2020.1. Accessed on 2022/11/16.

Lawrence, G. H. M, 1951. Taxonomy of Vascular Plants. The Macmillan Company, New York. Tenth Printing 1965.

Palmer, E. & Pitman, N. 1972. Trees of southern Africa. Balkema, Amsterdam, Cape Town.

van Wyk, B. & van Wyk, P. 1997 Field guide to Trees of Southern Africa. Struik, Cape Town.

 

http://www.plantwise.org/KnowledgeBank/Datasheet.aspx?dsid=12378

http://abcjournal.org/index.php/ABC/article/viewFile/1317/1277

http://posa.sanbi.org/flora/browse.php?src=SP

http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/kew-2730656