Botanical name |
Scolopia zeyheri (SA No 498) |
Other names |
Thorn pear; doringpeer (Afrikaans) |
Family |
Flacourtiaceae |
Dimensions |
Spiny shrub or small tree of around 7 m, occasionally a large tree of over 20 m; sometimes deciduous |
Description of stem |
Erect stem or multi-trunked, smooth grey bark, darkening with age and becoming rough and flaking; heavily spined dry branches often persist on the trunk; axillary woody spines occur on the young twigs |
Description of leaves |
Usually lanceolate, alternate, hairless, glossy and leathery, dark green above, lighter below; visible net-veining on both surfaces, sometimes appears to have a waxy covering on the leaf surface; margin often mildly toothed, but sometimes entire; apex sometimes rounded, often tapering and pointed; base tapering; young leaves sometimes partly light red |
Description of flowers |
Axillary inflorescence dense or loosely structured raceme of small white, cream or yellow flowers on short stalks, protruding stamens, a noticeable calyx, style tip divided; flowering in autumn to spring |
Desciption of seed/fruit |
Round red berry with a fine tip at the apex, appearing in winter or spring |
Description of roots |
|
Variation |
Leaf shape |
Propagation and cultivation |
Not often cultivated? |
Tolerances |
Adapted to a variety of environmental conditions in its diverse distribution area |
Uses |
Browsed by game; monkeys eat the berries; trunks used for poles and rafters from the Uluguru mountains in Tanzania (ST Mwihomeke et al (undated) for WCST in www.easternarc.or.tz) |
Ecological rarity |
Not threatened |
Pests and diseases |
Hosts spider mites |
Other |
Wood is hard and heavy |
Location |
At the edges of indigenous forests at coastal levels and inland; in open bushveld; sometimes on termite mounds |
Distribution (SA provinces) |
Western Cape; Eastern Cape; Kwazulu-Natal; Free State; Mpumalanga; Gauteng; Limpopo; North West |
Country |
South Africa; Lesotho; Swaziland; Botswana; Mozambique; Zimbabwe; Tanzania; Angola; Malawi |
Info | Palgrave |