General Info – summary

This evergreen, dioecious Tree has fissured bark and may reach 10m high.  It is usually a shrub with rigid branches.  On this densely leafed tree, the small obovate & hairy Leaves are simple & have entire margins, which taper into the short or absent petiole.  It has small, sweet-smelling, actinomorphic, 5-merous single Flowers.  The red to black Fruit is a berry with a persistent, accrescent calyx, and 2-8 oblong seeds.

Description

Diospyros austro-africana

Previous Names: Royena hirsute, Royena rugosa.

SA Tree No. 602.2.

Common names: (Afr) Jakkalsbos, Jakkalsbessie, Kersbos, Kraaibessie, Kraaibos, Kritikom, Jakkalsbos, Skilpadbos, Vuurmaakbossie.  (Eng) Fire Bush, Fire-sticks, Star-apple.  (Setswana) liperekisi-tsa-makhoaba, senokonoko.  (isiXhosa) Umbongisa.

Family: Ebenaceae (persimmon and ebony family).  The family has some plants known for the useful wood and others for fruit.  Trees are usually located in tropical and warmer temperate regions.  There are more than 750 species, in 4 genera, worldwide and the 37 species in South Africa occur in 2 genera (Euclea and Diospyros).  The bark and heartwood are black.  The simple, coriaceous and entire Leaves lack stipules are usually alternate or may be opposite, but both may occur on the same plant.  The usually unisexual and regular Flowers have a persistent calyx that is often divided near to the base.  The corolla usually has a short tube, and petals fused at the base and have overlapping lobes. The basifixed anthers are longer than the filaments.  The superior ovary has up to 2 ovules in each locule.  The styles may have 2-5 branches.  Fruit is a berry with an accrescent calyx, which may dehisce slowly.  Young fruit contains tannins and is usually avoided by animals until ripe.

Name derivation: Diospyros – Devine pear or pear of the gods.  austro-africana – of southern Africa.  In southern Africa, there are about 20 species in the genus Diospyros.  Those valued timber trees are called Ebony trees.  These produce dense, hard and dark timber.  Trees valued for their fruit are known as persimmon trees – not indigenous.  Diospyros plants are tropical (most) or subtropical, usually dioecious (unisexual floral structures with male and female parts are on separate plants).

Varieties of Diospyros austro-africana include

var. austro-africana (Western Cape winter rainfall area, flowers cream-white, leaves to 30 x 10mm).

var. microphylla (Most widespread in summer rainfall, arid rocky & grassy areas, flowers pink to cream, leaves stiff, leathery, hairy and up to 15 x 12mm).

var. rubriflora (Base of east mountain slopes of SA and Lesotho, flowers –pink to deep red), leaves spine tipped to 25 x 5mm).

var. rugosa. (Coastal winter rainfall of Western Cape, leaves – rolled under margin, upper surface wrinkled – up to 3,5cm long, leaves & flowers rust coloured due to glandular hairs).

Conservation: National Status of Diospyros austro-africana: L C (Least Concern).  Assessment: 2005 (W. Foden and L. Potter).

Tree

This much-branched evergreen plant may be a dense rounded twiggy shrub or a small Tree (photo 44) up to 10m high.  The Stem (main axis of the plant) may reach 13cm in diameter.  The branches are rigid.  This tree is a survivor and occurs in a variety of habitats.  The deeply fissured mature Bark is rough (photo 42).  It blisters and peals into long, narrow flakey strips.  Young branches are brown and hairy (photo 49 – under Flowers).

Leaves

This tree is densely leafy.  The alternate Leaves are simple (have a single blade which may have incisions that are not deep enough to divide the leaf into leaflets).  They are smooth and narrowly obovate (egg-shaped – with the narrower end at the base – photo 50).  Leaves are small – up to 3,5 x 0,5cm – usually less (photo 50).  The stiff, blue-green to greyish green leaves are spirally arranged (photo 46) and are crowded towards the ends of young branches.  The Blade is thickly leathery, dark above, and slighter lighter below – where there are both stellate and bristle-like hairs (photo 50).  This gives the whole tree a grey appearance (photo 44 under Tree).  In winter, the leaves turn blackish red.  The hairy leaves (usually more so on the lower surface) may partly hide the Veins, which are sunken above and protrude below (photo 50).  The Margin is entire (with a continuous margin, not in any way indented).  The Apex is broadly tapering to rounded and may end in a sharp tip (photo 50).  The Base tapers into the Petiole (leaf stalk – photo 46), which is short or absent (photo 50).

Flowers

The trees are dioecious (unisexual floral structures with male and female parts on separate plants).  The lantern-like, single, 5-merous Flowers are pendulous, up to 2cm long and rest on Pedicels (stalks of a single flower – photo 51).  Flowers are actinomorphic (Regular, symmetrical.  They are vertically divisible into similar halves by more than 1 plane passing through the axis).  The colours vary and may be white, light brown, cream, red or pink.  Flowers are strongly scented and less than 1cm long.  Short-lived boat-shaped Bracts surround individual flowers.  A single flower may develop at each leaf axil.  In the smaller Male flowers, the Stamens have basifixed Anthers that dehisce through longitudinal slits and are longer than their Filaments.  Each larger Female flower has a single Pistil (a unit of the Gynoecium, the female element of the flower, composed of the Ovary, Style and Stigma) with a superior Ovary, which is borne on a smooth Disc (a more or less fleshy or elevated development of the receptacle).  Here Staminodes (sterile stamens) are present.  (Jul-Nov).

Fruit

The roundish to oval, cherry-like Fruit is up to 1,5cm wide and matures into an often densely hairy red-black Berry (pulpy, indehiscent fruit like a grape or tomato).  This extends from a broad slightly 5-lobed, persistent Calyx that usually clasps the base of the Fruit and becomes accrescent (increasing in size with age) after the corolla has fallen.  The fleshy berry eventually has 2-5 segments and is about 1,5cm wide.  It may dehisce slowly through the apex dispersing the 2 or more oblong Seeds.  (Jan-Jun).

Distribution & Ecology

This hardy plant is Endemic (restricted to a particular geographic location) in southern Africa.  It occurs in all provinces in South Africa as well as Lesotho but does not occur in Namibia.  These plants grow in the Cape Peninsular and eastwards towards Uniondale (slightly to the north of Knysna).  From this area, they can occur along a north-easterly direction to include western Kwa-Zulu Natal, Lesotho, the Free State, North West, Gauteng, North-West, and Mpumalanga.  Different varieties occupy partly different positions in this area.  They usually occur on rocky hillsides and mountain stream banks.  Some animals may browse the leaves.  This plant attracts numbers of birds and butterflies.

Ethnobotany

The round fleshy Fruit is edible.  When wishing to attract birds, both male and female plants need to be present in order to produce fruit.  To achieve this use cuttings from selected male and female plants.  Dry sticks are used to kindle fire by friction.  The hard Wood makes a good fuel.

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. Diospyros austro-africana De Winter var. microphylla (Burch.) De Winter. National Assessment: Red List of South African Plants version 2020.1. Accessed on 2023/02/11.

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.

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

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

http://pza.sanbi.org/diospyros-austro-africana

https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-africa/view/observation/419102/diospyros-austro-africana

http://www.arthurleej.com/p-o-m-Mar06.html