African Wildlife and Environment Issue 72

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

winds, Sideroxylon can make an excellent hedge or barrier. Reasons given for not planting them is that they are slow-growing, (but that is not strictly speaking true, because I have seen them grow to 3m in 5 years, when properly planted and looked after), and that special permission must be obtained to prune them because of their legal status (I would argue that planted, barrier trees can surely be managed!), and finally that when they make the barrier the area could attract undesirable people.

For those of you who know that ‘smell’ that wafts into your car when passing through George / Wilderness towards Knysna on the N2, the one that some find unpleasant, being a mixture of ‘sour-and-sweetness’ - that is from the flowers of Sideroxylon , that can be present for much of the year (but peak flower is in early summer and also rain dependent). When produced in masses, the flowers attract many insects, particularly a species of fly that I mistook for honey bees, the hover flies, family Syrphidae.

Manilkara mochisia showing clustered leaf arrangement

Prof Eugene Moll Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology University of the Western Cape emoll@telkomsa.net

Sideroxylon flowers are held tight to the twigs

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