African Wildlife & Environment Issue 81

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

Historical Trees -The Magical Marula Tribes such as the Venda and the Tonga people refer to the Marula as 'The Marriage Tree' as it is regarded as a symbol of fertility and is used in a cleansing ritual prior to marriage. The Venda people also believe that the tree can determine the gender of an unborn baby. The traditional belief is that taking an infusion made from the bark of a female tree will produce a female child and an infusion from the bark of a male tree will produce a male child. If a child of the opposite gender is born however, that child is deemed to be very special as it was able to defy the spirits! Are Marulas threatened in the Kruger National Park? Because I am 'story-telling' let me start back at the

Other uses of Marulas by locals Apart from the valuable fruits for juice, beer, jelly and kernels, the wood is prized in some communities for making wooden utensils. The bark, roots, seeds and leaves are also used for traditional medicinal purposes, and the bark can also be used to make a light brown dye. The large Saturniid caterpillars that feed on the leaves are gathered for roasting and a wood-boring beetle-larva is also eaten. The oil from the kernels is used as a skin cosmetic. It is said that by eating the green leaves you are able to relieve heartburn. The bark contains antihistamines and is also used for cleansing by steeping in boiling water and inhaling the steam, and an extract from the bark pulp has been used to treat dysentery and diarrhoea (maybe that explains occasional elephant use?).

Southern African Wildlife College, where we often had volunteers. One such person was Leif Petersen, who had been one of my students in Wildlife Management at the University of Queensland in Australia. He was 'globe- trotting' after graduation, and asked if he could spend some time at the College - that eventually extended to two years! Leif is one of the brightest students I have been privileged to work with,

Sawn and polished Marula planks forming the kick-boards to the pub at the Wildlife College – and to the right a close-up

and no sooner had he arrived than he decided to embark on a Master’s programme. He had observed that just outside the College, Marulas were not recruiting, yet in the communal lands across the road, Marulas of all ages were plentiful. And on the College campus, a wildlife exclosure of ~30 hectares that had a dense grass-cover, there was seemingly no, or apparently little, Marula recruitment. His thinking was that for some reason the seeds were being eaten, or, if they germinated, they were not establishing. Leif set up experimental plots on campus, outside in 'Kruger Park', and across the road in the communal lands of Welverdiend. In all plots there were mature Marulas and in each he set rodent traps that were monitored twice daily for ~1,000 trap-nights per site - to asses not just rodent activity, but also which species were present in each of the areas.

Elephants are certainly important agents of dispersal as evidenced by this bolus with many fruits. And then these fruits can later germinate – a seedling next to one of the tarred roads in Kruger (inset).

24 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 81 (2022)