Salsola kali

Family Amaranthaceae

 A bush about 1m in height found growing in the Warmwaterberg region of the Cape

 No further information available.

Kudy Berry (Psuedolachnostylis maprouneifolia)

Family Euphorbiaceae

Uses and cultural aspects
From an aesthetic point of view, kudu berry is at its best in autumn when it changes colour to the most beautiful red. Extracts from the bark are used to treat diarrhoea. It has been used in the past to treat pneumonia. It can make a beautiful shade tree in parks and other public open spaces, especially in frost-free areas.

Description
Pseudolachnostylis maprouneifolia is an attractive, round, single-stemmed tree, up to 12 m high. The bark is greyish to dark brown. It is fairly slow growing but juveniles grow much faster than established trees. It is deciduous and loses its leaves in winter just after a magnificent display of red autumn foliage. This tree flowers from July to November and bears small greenish white flowers. Sexes are separate on different trees. Fruits are spherical, about 20 mm in diameter.

Ecology
Pseudolachnostylis maprouneifoloia is a larval food plant for the butterflies Abantis paradisea and Deudorix dinochares. During the flowering season, a variety of insects such as wasps and bees pollinate the flowers. Seeds are dispersed by animals such as antelope and elephants that eat the leaves and fruits, hence the common name. Fruits also fall to the ground below the tree.

Distribution and habitat
Kudu berry occurs naturally in mixed deciduous vegetation and in woodland, sandveld and on rocky ground; it grows in frost-free areas and can withstand hot and dry environments. In southern Africa, it is distributed in the north of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and spreads through to Zimbabwe. It also occurs in the north of Namibia and Botswana.

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False Gerbera (Haplocarpha scaposa)

Family Asteraceae

Distribution and habitat
Haplocarpha scaposa is widely distributed in wetland areas of Mpumalanga, the southeastern Free State, Swaziland and the Eastern Cape; it also extends to eastern Africa. False gerbera is a frost-tender groundcover and young plants require protection in areas that experience heavy frost.

Description
Haplocarpha scaposa is a fast-growing perennial plant that forms a mat of yellow flowers. The strong, thick rootstocks reach down to 600 mm; flat leaves arise from the base. The entire surface of the leaf is densely hairy, giving a white, woolly appearance,especially to the underside ; the veins are almost parallel on the undersurface of the leaf. It bears pale yellow flowers up to 40 - 80 mm diameter, from September to March. The flowers are followed by very thin seeds, easily dispersed by the wind.

 Uses and cultural aspects
This groundcover can be used in large areas of the garden, in semi-shade or full sun. Pooley (1998) reports crushed leaves used by women during menstruation; also used by traditional healers when consulting their divining bones; the white felt of the leaves was once used as tinder

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Silver Terminalia (Terminalia sericea)

Family Combretaceae

Description:
Terminalia sericea has reddish-brown branches. The leaves are crowded at the ends of branches, narrowly obovate-elliptic with smooth margins, blue-green above, paler below, densely covered in silvery hairs. It flowers mostly in September–January. The flowers are in axillary spikes and are pale yellow to creamy white. The fruit is an oval nut surrounded by a flat wing. The fruits are often parasitized and form deformed masses of thin round galls.

Distribution and habitat
Terminalia sericea occurs in a variety of types of open woodlands particularly on sandy soils. It may grow as a dominant or co-dominant species in mixed deciduous forests such as Brachystegia, mopane, Combretum or Acacia forest. It occurs from Tanzania and the DRC southwards to Angola and Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. A good place in South Africa to find silver cluster-leaf is the Kruger National Park (KNP) area.

Uses and cultural aspects
Terminalia sericea is important in traditional medicine. The leaves and roots are boiled in water and the infusion is taken orally for the treatment of coughs, diarrhoea and stomach aches. The leaves can be used as an antibiotic for wounds. In case of bleeding, a paste can be made by cooking the leaves in water and placing them on the wounds. The wood is used as a source of energy for cooking and boiling water, for constructing huts, for fencing material and for solid structures. Leaves are food for caterpillars during the rainy season.

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Rotheca Hirsuta

Family Lamiaceae

 A small plant about 30cm in height found in Mountain Zebra National Park.

Wild Cucumber (Cucumis africanus)

 Family Cucurbitaceae

Description
Perennial herb. Rootstock thick and woody. Stems annual, up to more than 2 m long, finely ridged, roughly whitish hairy, usually prostrate, but will climb on bushes and other support; cut twigs exude clear sap. Leaves broadly ovate, deeply 5-palmately lobed, 15-115 mm long, dull green, roughly hairy on both sides with bulbous-based hairs; crushed leaves non-aromatic. Leaf stalks finely ridged and roughly hairy, up to 80 mm long. Tendrils simple. Flowers pale to dark yellow with green veins, either male or female, both appearing on the same plant (monoecious). Male flowers in groups of 5-10, petals up to 9 mm long. Female flowers solitary, petals up to ± 11 mm long. Ripe fruit 30-80 x up to 3o mm, prickly, prickles up to 10 mm long, fleshy to hard, base flat; unripe fruit longitudinally striped dark and light green, maturing to greenish yellow or white, striped purplish brown or yellow, prickles mainly on dark bands; occurring in two distinct forms, either small, ellipsoidal, bitter and poisonous when ripe, or large, cylindrical, non-bitter and edible when ripe; flesh green and translucent, many-seeded. Seeds elliptic, about 4.5 x 2.5 mm, and 1 mm thick, cream-coloured.

Distribution
C. africanus is indigenous to Africa and occurs from the woodlands of Angola and Zimbabwe to Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. In South Africa it is found in Limpopo, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape. It is rare in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

With its wide distribution, C. africanus grows in a large variety of vegetation types. Collectors have recorded the following: Karoo and Karroid types such as Namaqualand Broken Veld, Karroid Merxmuellera Mountain Veld, also with Schmidtia kalahariensis, Salsola and species of drought-deciduous scrub as well as Renosterveld, grassland and False Grassland. Also listed are savanna and various kinds of woodland e.g. Kalahari Thornveld with Colophospermum mopane, Combretum, Terminalia and many species of Acacia. It is quite rare in the swampy coastal grassland of KwaZulu-Natal.

Ecology
C. africanus flowers and fruits from about September to May, but mostly in March. Some 120 fruit per plant have been observed. In southern Africa it grows from 150 to 2 115 m altitude in areas of very low to moderately high rainfall, from under 100 800 mm annually; one record from the KwaZulu-Natal coast is exceptional. It can withstand high soil temperatures (one collector measured 47.5°C at about noon), but thrives in partial shade where the leaves will be larger and somewhat less hairy. On a very hot day, the leaves have been observed to stand at a 90° angle to the soil surface. At least the underground parts are frost hardy. Bees visit the flowers, presumably other insects too.

Uses and cultural aspects
In South African traditional medicine the fruit, leaf or root of C. africanus is used as an emetic, purgative or enema for various ailments. The boiled leaf is used as a poultice. The plant has also been used as an animal medicine. The poisonous form of the fruit contains the bitter principle cucumin ; incidents of human and cattle poisoning have been recorded (Watt & Breyer-Brandwijk 1962). According to Meeuse (1962), there are three types of fruit with increasing amounts of the bitter substance.

The fresh young leaves are eaten as a pot herb by many rural people. Arnold et al. (1985) found that the leaves are rich in calcium, iron, nicotinic acid and vitamin C. The fruits have an overall nutrient composition slightly better than that of the cucumber and is sought after as a water source by the Khoisan of the Kalahari and in other dry areas. R.Marloth, the famous South African botanist, noted on his specimen no. 10040 (now in the National Herbarium), that he bought agurkies in a shop in Cape Town in January 1921. He found the flavour slightly acid and the odour of the pulp like real cucumbers.

The non-bitter fruits of C. africanus have been pickled and preserved at the Cape since the late 17th century. Recipes for these delicacies are found in several publications e.g. Rood (1994). The same recipes can be used for the cultivated West Indian gherkin, C. anguria var. anguria. This plant was taken by slaves from West Africa to the West Indies where it was domesticated.

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Horn Pod Tree (Diplorhynchus condylocarpon)

Family Apocynaceae

Ecology
This tree is reported to be fire-resistant and apparently even withstands repeated burning. In the wild it is known to attract insects such as butterflies and bees as well as birds. It is one of the favourite browse plants of the black rhino and is also heavily browsed by elephant. The fruits are eaten by small antelope and apparently the favourite food of rhinos.

Distribution and habitat
The horn-pod tree is distributed in tropical Africa in Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique and in southern Africa in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa (Limpopo, North-West, Gauteng and Mpumalanga Provinces). It grows in warm, dry, frost-free situations, on rocky slopes and in deep sandy soil in open woodland.

Description
Diplorhynchus condylocarpon grows as a shrub or small, deciduous, multistemmed tree up to 8 m high, with a grey-brown to blackish bark. The trunk is covered with small knob-like outgrowths (lenticels) and becomes scaly with age, cracking into small segments.

It has a wide-spreading, sparse crown with long, slender, drooping branches and shiny, opposite leaves. The leaves are light to dark green, leathery and smooth, 30-70 x 19-50 mm.

All parts of the plant contain milky sap. The flowers are white to cream-coloured, very small and fragrant, and are borne in terminal sprays. They usually appear with the new leaves from September to December. Two hard, woody, dark brown fruits (follicles) with pointed tips and speckled with white dots (lenticels) develop from some flowers. The fruits ripen between March and September and carry 2-4 compressed, winged seeds.

Uses and cultural aspects
The plant contains milky latex, which forms a soft, rubber-like substance sometimes used as bird-lime. It is also applied to the hides of drums to improve the quality and tone of the sound. The latex has even been used to repair the cracked sump of a car and punctures in bicycle tyres. It is also used as a remedy for screw-worm. Some tribes use it as a glue to stick feathers onto their arrows.

Leaves are used in traditional medicine. The Wemba tribe chew the leaf together with those of some other plants, breathe into the ears and nostrils and place the chewed material on the forehead of a patient to relieve a headache and an upset stomach. Roots are also used in traditional medicine. A strong suspension of the roots has been used to relieve blackwater fever. An infusion of the root is recorded as a treatment for diarrhoea.

Some tribes even plant the tree because of its aroma and use it as a snake-bite remedy and an emetic. The vapour from the fruit and roots boiling in water is inhaled to relieve a chronic cough and pulmonary tuberculosis. The latex has also been used as a wax for removing hair.

The wood is pale brown, fine-grained, hard and quite heavy and is suitable for making various small carved ornaments and utensils such as spoons. If large enough trunks can be obtained, it is even used for making furniture. The wood is said to be very attractive when polished. Branches are used for assegai and arrow shafts and for fuel. In Zambia, the outer bark is used as a substitute for tobacco and pounded bark as a wound dressing. The wood is also used for making strong fire-sticks.

In the past, the horn-pod tree has also been used for its bark fibre from which a cloth was woven or knotted (into pieces as large as blankets), known as gupo. These were traditionally worn by women in Zimbabwe.

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