General Info – summary

This small Tree is up to 10+m high with light brown smooth bark.  This deciduous tree has soft, thin, simple, ovate and alternatively arranged Leaves with long petiolules that develop at branch ends and lack stipules.  Tiny sweetly scented, white, 5-merous, bisexual Flowers are regular and up to 8mm long.  Fruit is a fleshy 1-seeded drupe with an accrescent and persistent calyx containing furrowed seeds.

Description.

Cordia caffra.

Previous Names: Cordia natalensis, Cordia zeyheri, Cordia erosa.

SA Tree No. 652.

Common names:  (Afr) Ouhout, Septee, Septeeboom.  (Eng) Saucer-berry, Septee Tree.  (isiXhosa) Umlovulovu, Umnovunovu, Umnofunofu.  (isiZulu) ilovu, ilovu-enkulu, ibhicongo, ilalanyathi, umkhanyakude, Umlovu.  (siSwati) Umlovu.  (Tshivenda) Mududa.

Family: Boraginaceae (Borage/Forget-me not family).  There are about 140 genera and 2 000+ species in this family.  In South Africa, there are 2 genera that contain trees.  They are Cordia and Ehretia.  Leaves are alternate or opposite and usually entire.  Stipules are absent.  Most Flowers are bisexual and 5-merous.  The 5 Stamens that alternate with the petals, have anthers that have 2 pollen sacs that dehisce through longitudinal slits.  The Style is attached to the base of the superior Ovary.  The Fruit may be a schizocarp (a dry, dehiscent fruit that splits into 2 one-seeded portions called mericarps at maturity) or a drupe (a fleshy, 1-seeded indehiscent fruit with the seed enclosed in a stony endocarp; stone fruit e.g. peach).

Name derivation: Cordia named after a German botanist Valerius Cordus (1515-1544).  He was also a physician and herbalist.  caffra – from the eastern Cape.  Seven species of the genus Cordia are located in southern Africa.

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

Tree

This Tree is up to 10+m high (photo 543) and the trunk may reach 25cm wide and may lean over.  It may also be a single stemmed or a multi stemmed shrub.  The tree may have a clearly spreading crown or it may be rather ragged.  The Bark is light brown, smooth, often mottled creamy brown with pinkish blotches.  It may have large, dry flaking pieces resulting in visible marks (photo 50).

Leaves

This deciduous tree has thin smooth drooping Leaves that are simple (has a single blade which may have incisions that are not deep enough to divide the blade into leaflets).  They are arranged alternatively and are concentrated towards the ends of young branches.  The ovate leaves are up to 12 x 5cm and are wider in the bottom half.  Young leaves have white to yellow hairs (photo 608 under Fruit), which are lost at maturity.  The Upper surface is dark green, smooth and slightly glossy (photo 87).  The Lower surface is a lighter green and less shiny (photo 116).  Up to 6 pairs of lateral veins are present and are slightly more prominent below (photo 878).  The Apex tapers to a narrowly pointed tip and the Base is rounded, square or cuneate (wedge-shaped) and may be asymmetric.  More than half of the apical end of the Margin may be irregularly finely to coarsely toothed (photo 160).  The thin Petiole (leaf stalk- photo 878) is relatively long – up to 5cm and slender.  Stipules (basal appendages of the petiole) are absent.  Many scattered, clear dots may be visible on the leaf.

Flowers

The campanulate (bell shaped), sweetly scented, small white Flowers are up to 1cm long.   They are on short stalks, in dense, many-flowered terminal heads.  The very small pear-shaped buds are smooth, shiny and light green.  The bisexual, white and short-lived flowers are actinomorphic (Regular, symmetrical.  The perianth, the calyx and corolla, is divisible into 3 or more identical sectors).  Individual flowers develop in leaf axils and are about 8mm long.  Each flowers rest on a short, slender pedicels (stalk of a single flower- photo 15 under Fruit).  The inflorescences lacks bracts.  There are 5 Sepals in the bell-shaped Calyx and the lobes are ovate.  These surrounds the Corolla that usually has 5 Petals with oblong curling back lobes.  Alternating with the petal lobes are 5 epipetalous (attached to the petals) Stamens.  These arise from the mouth of the corolla tube.  The oblong Anthers have 2-thecae (2 pollen sacs – the microsporangia of an anther.  They produce microspores – the pollen grains in seed plants).  The thecae open through longitudinal slits.  There is a single Pistil (a unit of the Gynoecium, the female element of the flower, composed of the Ovary, Style and Stigma).  The 4-locular, superior Ovary has a thick fleshy wall containing a single Ovule in each locule.  Each of the 2 branches of the Style is bifid (2-lobed; a deep cleft or notch divides the part into two parts).  (Sep-Oct).

Fruit

The small – up to 1,5cm in diameter Fruit is a round Drupe (a fleshy, 1-seeded indehiscent fruit with the seed enclosed in a stony endocarp; stone fruit e.g. peach).  The drupe has a stone (the hard covering enclosing the seed).  It has up to 4 locules but only 1 or 2 are fertile.  The developing fruit may have the remains of the style protruding from it (photo 15).  The cup shaped Calyx becomes accrescent (increasing in size with age after the corolla has fallen – photo 718) and surrounds the fruit base.  It is persistent and remains on the tree after the fruit has fallen.  The fruit becomes yellow to orange when ripe (photo 718).  Only 1 or 2 of the 4 locules in the ovary bear furrowed Seeds.

Distribution & Ecology

These Trees do not usually occur in large numbers.  They grow in frost-free areas like dune bush, coastal forest, in kloofs, in woodland and inland forest margins.  Trees occur naturally in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal – close to the coast, and more inland in the lower frost areas of Mpumalanga, and Limpopo e.g. Wyllie’s Poort.  They also grow in Swaziland and southern Mozambique.  Kudu, impala and other wild animals browse the Leaves.  Birds, especially some coucals (part of the cuckoo family), with their powerful beaks, eat the Fruit.  The Flowers attract insects, which become the pollinating agents.  This plant tolerates coastal conditions.  The wind easily moves the thin pendulous leaves with their long thin petioles.

Ethnobotany

Uses of the Wood include carving, roofing and for making walking sticks.  The Sapwood is light and soft but the Heartwood is hard, dark brown or black.  The friction caused by rubbing dry sticks together can replace matches to light fires.  Fruit is edible but not very tasty.  Propagation is easy by using Seeds.  The germinating seeds will develop in full sun, but will do best in light shade.  Flowering may take 6 years or longer.

References

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

Burrows, J.E., Burrows, S.M., Lotter, M.C. & Schmidt, E. 2018. Trees and Shrubs Mozambique.  Publishing Print Matters (Pty) Ltd.  Noordhoek, Cape Town.

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

Foden, W. & Potter, L. 2005. Cordia caffra Sond. National Assessment: Red List of South African Plants version 2020.1. Accessed on 2021/10/22.

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.

Schmidt, S. Lotter, M. & McCleland, W. 2002. Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and the Kruger National Park. Jacana, Johannesburg.

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

 

http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/cordiacaf.htm

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerius_Cordus