Pappea capensis

General Info – Summary

This impressive widely distributed Tree has smoothish bark & is up to 9m+ high.  Rough, leathery, stiff Leaves are simple, lack stipules and shape and size varies.  Tiny, usually, 5-merous and regular Flowers are dioecious or monoecious (here the male flowers ripen first).  These flowers develop in racemes.  The edible Fruit, with its hard capsule, splits in half – revealing a red arilode covering the brown/black seed.

Description

Previous Names: Pappea capensis var. radkloferi, Pappea radlkoferi, Pappea ugandensis, Pappea fulva, Pappea schumanniana, Sapindus capensis, Sapindus pappae.

SA Tree No. 433.

Common names:  (Afr) Bergpruim, Doppruim, Jacket Plum, Kaambessie, Kaambessieboom, Kaambos-bessiepitte, Noupitjie, Noupitjieboom, Oliepitboom, Oliepit, Oliepitte, Ooppitjie, Pruim, Pruimbessie, Pruimbessieboom, Pruimbessiebos, Pruimbos, Suurbessie, Tkaambes, T’kaambes, Tkaambesboom, Tkaambessie, T’kaambessie, Tkaambessieboom, T’kaamboom, Tshikavhavhe, Wilde-amandel, Wildepruim.  (Eng) Bushveld Cherry, Indaba Tree, Jacket Plum, Lobengula’s Indaba Tree, Judgement Tree, Wild Amandel, Wild Cherry, Wild Plum, Wild Amandel, Wild Cherry, Wild Plum. (isiXhosa) Ilitye, Umgqalutye.  (isiZulu) Indaba, Umgqogqo, Umkhokhwane Umqhokwane, Umqhoqho, Umvuma, Uvumebomvu.  (Northern Sotho) Mongatane, Mopsinyugane.  (Setswana) Mopênôeng, Mopênnwêeng, Morobaliepe, Mothata, Motlhatlha.  (siSwati) Liletsa, Umlahlabantu.  (Tsonga) Xikwakwaxu, Gulaswimbi.  (Tshivenda) Tshikavhavhe.

Family: Sapindaceae: (Soapberry and Litchi family).  This family has 135 genera and about 1 800 species including lianas, herbs and trees.  The alternate, usually pinnately compound Leaves often lack stipules (leaf stalks) and have a swollen base.  The small, usually unisexual, Flowers may be regular or irregular, develop in racemes or panicles and usually insect pollinated.   The Calyx has 4-5 lobes and, when present, the Corolla has 3-5 petals.  There are between 5 and 24 Stamens, which have free Filaments and the Anthers have 2 pollen sacs.  The superior Ovary usually has 1 style with a stigma.  There are 27 species in 14 genera in southern Africa.  Local genera with trees on this website include Allophylus, Atalaya, Dodonaea, Erythrophysa, Filicium, Hippobromus, Macphersonia hildebrandtii, Pappea, Smelophyllum and Stadmannia.

Name derivation: Pappea named after Carl W L Pappe (1803-1862).  He was a physician, the first colonial botanist and Prof of botany in what is now the University of Cape Town.  capensis – from the Cape of Good Hope of SA.  Pappea capensis is the only species in southern Africa.

Conservation: National Status: L C. (Least Concern).  Assessed: 2005/02/14. (J.E. Victor and A.E. van Wyk).

Tree

This much-branched, dense Crown (photo 113), may be round or flat.  This medium sized Tree is usually from 3 to 9m high but may reach 14m.  It tends to be much smaller in dry areas.  The Bark is pale grey to brownish, rather smooth, and often contains Lichen (composite organism arising from a mutualistic relationship between fungi or cyanobacteria and algae species).  Here the lichen is light blue (photo 847).  The thickish, spreading Branches are light grey and knobbly (photo 211).  Initially light brown to brownish-orange hairs cover these branches.  The branch tips are round or slightly pointed.  Branches may develop Lenticels (a usually raised corky oval or elongated area on the plant that allows the uncontrolled interchange of gases with the environment – photo 93).  Controlled interchange of gases occurs in leaf stomata, which have 2 guard cells that can open and close.

Leaves

These usually evergreen trees have tough simple Leaves (with a single blade that may have incisions that are not deep enough to divide the leaf into leaflets).  Leaves are usually spirally arranged.  They tend to be crowded near branch ends.  The stiff, rough to touch, and variable leaves are oblong, elliptic or obovate to almost circular.  The Apex may be rounded (photo 42).  The Base is rounded or cordate (heart shaped) and may be asymmetric (unequal on both sides photo 42).  Margins are wavy and variable (photos 114 & 42).  Leaves are variable in size up to 17 x 6cm (photo 42).  In arid areas, they may be much less than half this size.  The mature Blade may be yellow to dark olive green and is dull above and paler below (photo 42) and thin to leathery.  The many closely positioned prominent Side Veins are yellowish, raised below and clearly visible on both sides (photo 42).  Vein details are more visible when the leaf is viewed against the sun (photo 654).  Here the initially parallel side veins, usually branch, forming a Y or U-shape, one or more times before reaching the margin (photo 43 & 654).  This branching may start after about half the distance or more to the margin.  The hairy lower side, including veins, is visible in photo 43.  Young leaves may be Serrated (with a saw-toothed margin with teeth pointing forward – photo 114).  Serrated leaves also occur on coppice growth (in this case, when stems are cut or burned, it causes regrowth from the stump or roots).  Leaves on mature trees are usually Entire (with a continuous margin, not in any way indented).  Here the Petiole (leaf stalk – photo 42) is stout and up to 1,7cm long.  Stipules (basal appendages of the petiole) are absent.

Flowers

The very small, up to 3mm wide, individual Flowers (photo 136) are pale yellow to greenish and are best viewed with the aid of a hand lens.  They are 5-merous (number of flower parts: here usually in 5’s).  Flowers start to develop in late November and early December (enlarged flowerhead: photo 386).  Flowers are Actinomorphic (Regular, symmetrical.  Here flowers are vertically divisible into similar halves by more than 1 plane passing through the axis).  This plant may be Monoecious (having both male and female reproductive organs on the same plant – in which case the male flowers are produced first), or Dioecious (unisexual floral structures with functional male and female parts on separate plants).

These flowers develop in Racemes (simple, unbranched, indeterminate inflorescence that opens in succession towards the apex: photos 386 & 136).  Racemes are located towards the ends of branches of leaf axils (here the upper angle between the leaf and stem).  This is where the nearly circular flowers develop (photo 386).

The racemes are up to 15cm long but shorter in drier areas.  A small Disc (a more or less fleshy or elevated development of the Receptacle (the expanded tip of the flower stalk from which the floral parts develop (photo 73).  Here the disc position is clearer due to the reduced calyx and corolla.  The cup-shaped Calyx (is the outer whorl of a floral envelope and here consists of 5 leaf-like structures called Sepals that develop at the base of each flower and protect the bud during development.  Sepal lobes are ovate (shape of an egg) and are joined together at the base (photo 775 – lower left).  In this plant the Corolla (the second whorl of the floral envelope) usually has 5 Petals (occasionally 4 or 6) which may be only slightly longer than the sepals (upper photo 775).  In this photo the petals are small and inconspicuous but slightly longer than the sepals.

The 8-10 Stamens (male reproductive part of a flower) arise within the disc.  Each has long white hairy Filaments (photo 775) that link the disc to each anther.  In this photo, each of the terminal Anthers has 2 pollen sacs that change from greenish yellow to brown.  There is a single Pistil (a unit of the Gynoecium, the female element of the flower, composed of the Ovary, Style and Stigma) with a 3-chambered superior Ovary that is absent in male only flowers.  The short thick Style (part of the pistil situated between the ovary and the simple Stigma (the part of the pistil that receives the pollen – much enlarged in photo 541 – under Fruit).

In a bisexual plant both stamens and a pistil are present.  In unisexual male flowers, no ovary is present.  In the later developing unisexual Female flowers, the Staminodes (sterile stamens) are small.  (Jan-May – variable).

Fruit

The abundant almost spherical or oval Fruit is edible and is initially enclosed in a hairy green Capsule (a dry fruit resulting from the maturing of a compound ovary that usually opens at maturity by one line of dehiscence (photo 09).  Capsules may reach 1,5cm wide.  After pollination in bisexual flowers, the Stamens and Style are initially still visible (photo 541).  In this photo, the hairy Pedicels (stalks of single flowers) are visible.  As it matures, the capsule becomes brown, hard, and brittle and is nearly up to 2cm in diameter (photos 540 & 28).  Each capsule splits into 2 parts, revealing a bright red/orange inner flesh (photo 383 – intro photo) which surrounds a single, shiny brown to black Seed (photo 540).  This orange-red, fleshy and jelly-like part is an Arillode (a structure in certain seeds that only resembles an aril (specialized outgrowth from a seed that partly or completely covers the seed) but develops from the ovule of the Micropyle (a small opening in the surface of an ovule, through which the pollen tube penetrates, often visible as a small pore in the ripe seed.  During germination, the seedling’s Radicle – embryonic root – emerges through the micropyle not from the Funiculus (the stalk by which the ovule or seed is attached to the ovary wall or placenta that connects the ovule or a seed with the placenta).  The arillode completely envelops the developing seed.  The micropyle is often visible as a small pore in the shiny ripe Seed.  Both the seed and arilode appear to be in a jacket – hence the name – “jacket-plumb” (intro photo and 28).  This occurs when the capsules dehisce.  Each seed is about 8mm wide when released and has a basal circular depression.  (Feb-Jul).  The empty shells may hang on the tree for many months and become less attractive.  In arid areas there is far less visible fruit (Nov-Jun).

Distribution & Ecology

This tough mature Tree is neither frost nor heat sensitive and is capable of surviving in dry areas.  It occurs in wooded grasslands, in the bushveld, associated with termite mounds, on rocky outcrops in riverine thickets and Karroo type landscape.  It is less common in forests.  Associated trees include Boscia oleoides, Portulacaria afra, and Euclea undulata.  Provincially this plant occurs in the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Gauteng e.g., Melville Koppies, Limpopo and Northern Cape e.g., the valley near Augrabies Falls.  Beyond our borders, it occurs in Eswatini (Swaziland), Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe (e.g., the tree in the Bulawayo State House), Zambia, Namibia, and into mainly eastern Tropical Africa.  The scent of the Flowers attract insects, including bees, wasps and flies.  Many Birds, including black-collard barbets, green pigeons, bulbuls, starlings and mousebirds relish the Fruit and distribute the seeds via droppings.  In photo 28 under Fruit, damage by feeding birds is visible.  Leptocoris hexophthalmus is a red and black soapberry bug that feeds on the shiny oily Stone (the hard covering enclosing the seed e.g. peach and this plant) of the fallen Seeds.  Monkeys, baboons, bushbuck, giraffe and elephants eat the sweet to sour Fruit, and elephant giraffe and occasionally stock browse Leaves.  Larvae of the common hairtail butterfly Anthene definite, the Brown playboy butterfly (Deudorix antalus), Pearl-spotted charaxes (Charaxes jahlusa) and the Gold-banded forester (Euphaedra neophron) feed on this plant.

Ethnobotany

The white, hard and dense Wood may be tinged with brown and has a twisted grain.  Uses include making furniture, sticks, poles and spoons.  It does not usually become sufficiently wide to be of more use.  Mammals including people birds and domestic stock eat the pleasantly tasting tart Fruit and may eat the Leaves.  Good jelly, an alcoholic drink and even vinegar can be made from the fruit.  A golden yellow non-drying fragrant oil extracted from the Seed is used to make soap and even for oiling gums and is slightly purgative.  Bark is used medicinally.  The slowish developing tree is easily Grown from seeds and will enhance bird life wherever it is planted.  Speed of growth will be enhanced if planted in a warm sunny area.  This is a good fodder plant and shade tree (photo 113 under Tree).

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.

Bryant, C. Lombo, B. 2004. Trees of CC Africa. Double Story Books, Cape Town.

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

Ginn P.J. Mcilleron W.G. and Milstein P. le S, 1989. The Complete Book of Southern African Birds. Struik, Cape Town.

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.

Victor, J.E. & van Wyk, A.E. 2005. Pappea capensis Eckl. & Zeyh. National Assessment: Red List of South African Plants version 2024.1. Accessed on 2026/01/18.

http://plantzafrica.com/plantnop/papcap.htm

http://witkoppenwildflower.co.za/pappea-capesis/

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

Andrew Hankey. Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden. June 2004