It's Spring day today, although it's still 20 days to the Spring equinox. Today also marks the beginning of National Arbor Week throughout South Africa. The national tree of 2011 is Pappea capensis Common names: jacket plum, Indaba tree, bushveld cherry (Eng.); doppruim (Afr.); umQhokwane, umVuna, iNdaba (Zulu); iliTye, umGqalutye (Xhosa); mongatane, Mopsinyugane (Northern Sotho); liLetsa (Swati); Xikwakwaxu, Gulaswimbi (Tsonga).

Why not celebrate the beginning of Spring by heading off to your nearest garden centre to get a Jacket-Plum tree to plant in your garden or any tree for that matter. Why not buy a few fruit trees to take your local school or community centre? Let's help Green South Africa even more starting this week and what better place to be than outside in the garden.

More info on Pappea capensis:

Family: Sapindaceae (litchi or soap-berry family)

The jacket plum is a long-lived, hardy, evergreen small to medium tree with a height of 2-8 m. It grows at a moderate rate but is slow-growing under dry and/or cold conditions. The jacket plum is a worthy addition to any garden no matter what part of the country you live in. It can tolerate both cold and heat as well as prolonged periods of drought. It may be used as a specimen tree or as a focal point. It is useful as a street tree or for shade in parking lots as it does not have an aggressive root system. The leaves are simple and oblong, hard-textured and wavy. New leaves are an attractive pinky-bronze when they emerge in spring, and this contrasts well with the dark green of the old leaves. Making an attractive display.

The jacket plum is a worthy addition to any garden no matter what part of the country you live in. It can tolerate both cold and heat as well as prolonged periods of drought. It may be used as a specimen tree or as a focal point. Its attractive pale grey stem often has patches of darker colours. It is useful as a street tree or for shade in parking lots as it does not have an aggressive root system. It is also well suited to being employed as part of a mixed screen or wind barrier or as part of a natural bushclump in a wildlife-friendly garden or in large landscapes such as parks and golf courses. As it seldom attains tremendous dimensions it also lends itself to being used in townhouse gardens. It develops a closed, dense crown under cultivation in areas of higher rainfall, which creates a cool shady place for a garden bench.

The greenish sweetly scented flowers are borne on catkins in the axils of the leaves, followed by round green velvety fruits which split open to reveal bright red flesh with a dark brown to black seed imbedded within. Flowers attract a wide variety of insects which in turn attract many birds. The seed is parasitized by a small, bright red bug (Leptocoris hexophtalma) which sucks the oil from the seed on the ground below the tree. Flowering season is from September to May.

The fruit, produced from December to July, is eaten by various frugivorous birds and animals which in turn distribute the seeds in their droppings. The leaves are browsed by game such as elephant, giraffe, kudu, nyala, bushbuck, and grey duiker as well as domestic stock animals.

The wood is hard, light brown with a reddish tint, tough and heavy with a twisted grain with apparently little difference between the heartwood and sapwood. It is used to make sticks, poles, cattle yokes, furniture and kitchen utensils.

Distribution
Pappea capensis is widespread in southern Africa from the Northern Cape through the drier Karoo, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, to the northern provinces, as well as Mozambique, Zimbabwe and northwards into eastern and southern tropical Africa. It naturally occurs in bushveld, riverine thicket, wooded grassland and rocky outcrops in grassland as well as scrub veld and is often found on termite mounds. Due to its wide distribution range it is well suited to cultivation in a wide variety of climatic conditions.

References and further reading
Coates Palgrave, M. 2002. Keith Coates Palgrave Trees of southern Africa, edn 3. Struik, Cape Town.
Hankey, A. 1999. Creating bush-clumps and exclusion areas in out of play areas of golf courses and large estates. Turf & Landscape Maintenance No. 14.
Hutchings, A. 1996. Zulu medicinal plants: an inventory. University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg.
Kroon, D.M. 1999. Lepidoptera of southern Africa, host-plants and other associations. Lepidopterists Society of Southern Africa, Johannesburg.
Migdoll, I. 1987. Field guide to butterflies of southern Africa. Struik, Cape Town.
Palmer, E. & Pitman, N. 1972. Trees of southern Africa, vol. 2. Balkema, Cape Town.
Pooley, E. 1993. The complete field guide to trees of Natal, Zululand and Transkei. Natal Flora Publications Trust, Durban.
Schmidt, E., Lötter, M. & McCleland, W. 2002. Trees and shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park. Jacana, Johannesburg.
Venter, S. & Venter, J. 1985. Making the most of indigenous trees. Briza Publications, Pretoria.