African Wildlife & Environment Issue 74

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

woody while the latter is basically fibrous). Thus, in the final analysis my take on all of this is that in the pursuit of trying to make our tree list impressive we have bent the rules somewhat to achieve an impressive total of more than 2,100 'trees'! But in so doing we have blurred the difference between 'trees' and perennial sub-woody shrubs like Lippia javanica (Tree number 657.5), that is essentially a single- stemmed, sub-woody perennial, that I have never seen more than two metres high and never with a diameter approaching 100mm. But, hey, that is just my experience! Before signing off on this messy, but interesting topic I would like to throw one more spanner-in-the- works and this is about common plant names. Here in South African we are starting to think-up common names for plants because there is a general demand amongst the public for them. Many amateurs are put off botany, by complex scientific nomenclature and that is a negative for biodiversity conservation

Acacia welwitschia (the Delagoa thorn – now Senegalia welwitschia ) can easily be confused with other large thorn trees

and people. Don’t get me wrong, in the past I was a binomial purist, but with age and experience I see a very important role for common names, especially with the growth of citizen science. Probably a recent founder and protagonist for common names is Tony Rebello of SANBI, because when he was managing the epic protea attlassing project he discovered that people wanted common names, so he started inventing names. This has started something of a tradition. Although I am in favour of plants having common names, what is a big negative is when the same plant has more than one common name. Ideally, we need a list of 'official' common names, so we are all singing off the same hymn sheet. That is another can of worms for another day!!! Prof Eugene Moll Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology University of the Western Cape emoll@telkomsa.net

When Acacia robusta (the river thorn - now Vachellia robusta ) is out in the open it is not always easyto identify. When it is in a riverine situation it is much more easily spotted

19 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 74 (2019)