Versamelde gedigte

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Notes

the baobab (Adansonia digitata) also variously known as cream-of-tartar-tree, lemonade-tree, monkey-bread tree, Ethiopian sour tree, mowana (big tree), has been called ‘the tree of a thousand years,’ and ‘the oldest organic monument of our planet’. It is remarkable for attaining the largest girth of any tree in existence: a girth of 50 feet and a diameter of 30 feet have been recorded. The greatest height observed is 70 feet, the more usual for old trees being from 40 to 60 feet. ‘The wood is soft and subject to the attacks of a fungus which renders the parts affected easily hollowed out. This is done by the negroes, and within these hollows they suspend the dead bodies of those who are refused the honour of burial.’ Livingstone speaks of a hollow trunk within which 20 to 30 men could lie down with ease.

Water captured during the rainy season and retained in these hollows has been a boon to the thirsty traveller when no other source was available. The bark furnishes a strong fibre which is made into rope and in Senegal woven into cloth.

‘The general colour of the immense stems was grey and rough; but where the old bark had peeled and curled off, the new shone through over large portions giving them, according to the light and shade, a red or yellow grey or a deep purple tone.’

The leaves, which are used medicinally by the natives, are deciduous. The large (much larger than those of any other South African tree) pendent Hibiscuslike flowers with white petals and yellow stamens are 5 to 6 inches in diameter. The woody fruit, 8 to 12 inches long, contains an edible pulp which makes a refreshing drink when mixed with water.

The Baobab is found in various parts of Africa, getting as far south as the Northern Transvaal. The botanical name Adansonia is after Adanson, who travelled in Senegal in 1794. A second species of Adansonia belongs to Australia. blue jay. - This is the European Roller or Europese Troupand (Coracias garrulus) which is a migrant and found most frequently in the Northern Transvaal, from December to March. ‘The name Roller refers to the habit which this bird has of turning over in the air like a tumbler-pigeon in its display-flight.’ It is 12 to 12½ inches long.

ewa-trewa, pronounced evver-trevva, is a common name for various species of Satyrium, a large genus of orchids of which 52 species, more than half the genus, are found in South Africa. Thunberg, in his South African ‘Travels,’ in 1773, mentions ‘trewa’ as being applied to these orchids; but no explanation has been given of the meaning. The species referred to here (p. 42) is very probably the ‘rooi trewa’, Satyrium carneum.

flames are so called because of their flaming red and orange flowers. This particular species, Homoglossum Merianellum, has never been found off the Cape Peninsula, and even there it is restricted to the mountains south of Constantia Nek. Indeed, now they are rarely to be seen till we come to the high ground above Smitswinkel Bay - their winged seeds ever being blown southwards by the north or north-west winds that prevail during the early spring which they herald in the splendour of their ‘living hues’. They are at their best, perhaps, in July. Homoglossum, a genus of Iridaceae and closely related to Gladiolus, contains about 16 species and is entirely African, 14 being South African.

flat crowns are umbrageous trees reaching from 40 to 50 feet in height and

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found only in South Africa, where they are known as witte els or white alder. Their botanical name Platylophus trifoliatus means broad crest with trefoil leaves. The leaflets are 3-5 inches long.

kaffirboom (Erythrina caffra), a leguminous tree up to 60 feet in height, grows in woods not far from the sea in the eastern districts of South Africa and is often cultivated as an ornamental tree. The wood is soft and the trunks are hollowed out to make troughs and canoes. The leaves are clustered near the end of the branchlets. They are deciduous and appear later than the flowers, being fully developed just after the flowers are over.

The latter are up to 2 inches long and are massed in dense clusters. Their copious supply of nectar attracts sunbirds as well as bees.

There are about a hundred species of Erythrina in the warm regions of both hemispheres, five of which belong to South Africa. They are commonly known as coral trees on account of their bright red flowers, and the scientific name (derived from the Greek word eruthros, red) is also in reference to this character.

litvit, an epithet coined by the author for the arum-lily-frogs, his special pets at Ronde Vlei.

mabolel. - The Mabolel is the chief of the ‘many large holes in the Limpopo River (northern Transvaal), popularly known as hippo-holes, parts of the river where a dike of limestone or dolomite has dammed up the water so as to make a lake-like expanse. It is a huge pool (in good seasons) which in late afternoons with the sun glinting upon its wide waters seemed much larger than it really was. I judged it to be about half a mile long and 200 yards wide, overhung in parts by high trees which gave shelter to many different kinds of birds, making it not only an ornithologist's paradise but a place probably unrivalled in the Transvaal for the variety of natural interest it holds.’ (See ‘Bushveld Doctor’, pp. 143-159: ‘The Mabolel’ C.L.L.).

melat, probably an error for meloti, a name sometimes used for the camdeboo stinkwood, Celtis Kraussiana, which is found from Cape Town to Abyssinia, attaining a height of 80 feet in favourable situations.

sicklethorn (Dichrostachys glomerata), a shrub or small tree belonging to the Mimosa-group of the Leguminosae, and having sickle-shaped thorns on the leaves. The flowers are in spikes or ‘tassels,’ those in the lower part being pink or purplish and sterile and those in the upper part yellow and bearing pods in a close cluster. Dichrostachys, meaning two-coloured spike, is in reference to this characteristic, and glomerata probably alludes to the agglomerated pods.

twining lilies belong to the lily-family (Liliaceae) and to the small genus, Gloriosa, containing about six species, all with remarkably handsome flowers. They twine with the tendril-like tip of their leaves. Three species are found in South Africa, and very probably the species referred to here is the ‘superb’ one (G. superba), which has bright red and yellow flowers about 2 inches long.

usakos, a town near the borders of the Namib desert in South-West Africa, a country rich in minerals.

water-hawthorn or water-uintjie is a common aquatic plant whose floating leaves and fragrant flowers mantle whole vleis in the rainy season. During the dry season the plant dies down and the tuberous rootstock or ‘uintjie’ rests in the ground. Both the uintjies and the flowering-portion are eaten, and if properly prepared are very good and wholesome. It belongs to the naiad family (Naiadaceae) and is known botanically as Aponogeton distachyon, which might be paraphrased as meaning an inhabitant of calm water, with the inflorescence divided

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into two branches. The fragrance of the flowers, suggesting that of hawthorn, accounts for the more unusual name water-hawthorn.

wild wistaria or violet tree (Bolusanthus speciosus) grows in Rhodesia, Portuguese East Africa and the Transvaal, being ‘frequent along the northern foothills of the Zoutpansberg and in the low veld bush country along the Selati River’. The first collection in South Africa was made in 1886 at Komati River Drift by Dr. Harry Bolus in whose honour it was called Bolus-flower (Bolusanthus). It is also known as ‘Van Wyk's Hout’ and reaches a height of 30 to 40 feet. The pendent clusters of dark blue or violet pea-flowers recall those of Wistaria, and a tree in full bloom is described as ‘one of the most beautiful sights in the veld’.

zombie, an African word with several meanings, of which one signifies some supernatural power or essence which may reanimate a dead body, or even the corpse itself so reanimated.