African Wildlife & Environment Issue 76 FINAL

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

A new tree book IS BORN

In Issue 74 of this magazine I discussed my views on what constitutes a tree and spoke a little of some recent tree books that are available. For this issue I have decided to do a promotion, simply because I am passionate about people and trees, and because I am heavily involved and committed to editing a unique new book, that hopefully will hit the shelves at the end of 2020 or early 2021.

PROF EUGENE MOLL

PLATE 10 Nat ional tree Number 594 Euc lea cr ispa Blue guar r i • Bloughwar r ie Tough, st i f f, leather y, leaves wi th a somet imes- wavy margin is character ist ic

I am also totally supportive of people who attempt to write a book about trees, knowing full well from my own experience how difficult it is, how much work and dedication it takes, (because there is no way an author can make a living writing tree books), and how vital it is to have a partners and/or others by your side on a long journey. This book’s title is Know them by their Fruits and the author, Trevor Ankiewicz, is a Saasveld Forestry graduate from 1965, with a long and illustrious career in forestry, horticulture, and nature conservation, who on retirement qualified as a Nature Guide to supplement his small pension. Over the 40 years of his working life, and later in retirement, he has visited most corners of SouthAfrica where he was able to collect and illustrate all the 381 species in his book. The reason he chose to illustrate fruits, is that like so many tree-lovers he found it difficult to identify many tree species from their leaves. Fruits, like flowers, have much more stable shapes and sizes, and unlike flowers are mostly more persistent. Thus, if you scratch around under the canopy you may find remnants of fruits and/or seeds that can be a useful additional tool for identification. And thus, his book was born but the gestation period has been a long, long time! Being me, I could not resist the temptation to get involved in the publication of Trevor’s book, after I met himbackinJanuary2018.HewasourSAregisteredlocal

PLATE 26 Nat ional tree Number 39 Cel t is afr icana Af r ican whi te-st inkwood • Wi tst inkhout Leaves sandpaper y-hai r y wi th t ree prominent basal veins and an unequal leaf-base

24 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 76 (2020)