Photo Guide to Trees of Southern Africa, by Braam van Wyk, Piet van Wyk and Ben-Erik van Wyk.

Photo Guide to Trees of Southern Africa, by Braam van Wyk, Piet van Wyk and Ben-Erik van Wyk. Briza Publications. 2nd edition. Pretoria, South Africa 2014. ISBN 9781920217044 / ISBN 978-1-920217-04-4

Photo Guide to Trees of Southern Africa, by Braam van Wyk, Piet van Wyk and Ben-Erik van Wyk is an identification and reference guide to 300 of the more common, native and naturalised tree species in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique south of the Zambezi River, South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho.

Braam van Wyk  Piet van Wyk  Ben-Erik van Wyk  

BlOMES AND THE HABITAT OF TREES

The presence of trees in the landscape and their characteristic growth forms often reflect the biome, veld type or habitat to which the tree is adapted. Fire, frost, soil moisture and light intensity all play a role, not only in shaping the trees, but also in determining whether tree growth is possible in the first place. There are conspicuous differences in the abundance, growth forms and adaptations of trees of the various biomes of southern Africa. True forest is very limited in southern Africa, and is found mainly along the eastern part of the subcontinent. These forests usually occur in small isolated patches, either at high elevations, except for the large high forests of the Knysna-Tsitsikamma region, where latitude seems to compensate for lack of altitude (afromontane forest), or in low-lying coastal areas (coastal and sand forest). Forest trees are often easier to recognise by the texture and colour of the bark than by their growth form, because they occur in dense stands and are often very tall so that the canopy features are not readily available. Most of them are evergreen. Bushveld or savanna trees, in contrast, are usually deciduous and they display striking and distinctive features. They often grow singly and widely spaced, so that their shapes are visible from afar. Bushveld trees often branch freely and widely some distance above the ground, the young branches escaping the ravages of fire and hungry browsers. Most bushveld trees withstand the effects of veld fires well because they have a thick protective bark. Trees from the grassland biome are often similar to those of the bushveld, but they usually occur in isolated patches, often on rocky ridges where they receive protection from fire and frost. In the Karoo and desert regions, trees are found mainly along rivercourses or on rocky hills, where water is periodically available as ground water or as surface runoff. In specialised habitats such as fresh-water and mangrove swamps, trees have evolved interesting mechanisms (such as breathing roots and special excretory glands) enabling them to cope with the fluctuating water levels and salinity. The fynbos biome, despite its well-known diversity of plant species, is rather poorly endowed with trees. Among the better known ones are the silvertree {Leucadendron argenteum) and kreupelhout (Leucospermum conocarpodendron). Both species display the main strategies evolved by fynbos plants to survive fire — the silvertree is always killed by fire and re-establishes from seeds, while the kreupelhout is not killed but resprouts from the corky branches or the base after fire. The same two strategies are found even amongst closely related trees — the common mountain cypress {Widdringtonia nodiflora) is a resprouter, while the Clanwilliam cedar {W. cedarbergensis) is an obligate reseeder. Many southern African trees have edible and often delicious fruits, and it seems strange that none of them has yet been domesticated and developed into commercial crops. The marula is perhaps the closest of them all to being domesticated, but several others are already being grown on an experimental scale. Well-known fruits that are sometimes sold on roadsides include stamvrug, Kei-apple, sour-plum, blue sourplum, prickly-pear, moepel or common red-milkwood, mahobohobo, azanza, ber or desert apple from India (Ziziphus mauritiana), corky monkey-orange and green or spiny monkey-orange. Lesser known but with considerable potential are african mangosteen {Garcinia livingstonei), wild-medlar (Vangue-ria infausta), wildplum (Harpephyllum caffrum), jackalberry (Diospyros mespiliformis), velvet raisin (Grewia flava), jacketplum {Pappea capensis), baobab (Adansonia digitata), mobolaplum (Parinari curatellifolid), forest milkberry {Manilkara discolor), sycomore fig (Ficus sycomorus), black monkey-orange {Strychnos madagascariensis), wild custard-apple {Annona senegalensis), wild datepalm [Phoenix reclinatd) and big num-num or amantungulu {Carissa macrocarpa). [...]

This is an excerpt from Photo Guide to Trees of Southern Africa, by Braam van Wyk, Piet van Wyk and Ben-Erik van Wyk.

Title: Photo Guide to Trees of Southern Africa
Authors: Braam van Wyk, Piet van Wyk, Ben-Erik van Wyk
Publisher: Briza Publications
2nd edition. Pretoria, South Africa 2014
ISBN 9781920217044 / ISBN 978-1-920217-04-4
Softcover, 17 x 24 cm, 360 pages, 900 photographs, distribution maps