Residents rally to protect Pretoria’s jacaranda heritage

Residents have been asked to put aside the age-old battle of which city has the most jacaranda trees and sign a petition to have the 136-year-old jacaranda trees planted in Sunnyside, Pretoria, given provincial heritage status in Gauteng.

Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations spokesperson Gerhard Pretorius urged residents to sign a petition to declare the trees part of the capital’s heritage after the Provincial Heritage Resources Authority Gauteng (Phrag) rejected an application to declare them a provincial heritage.

“According to Phrag, there is no heritage value to the worldfamous jacaranda trees that have bloomed in Pretoria for almost 140 years. An appeal was filed against this decision in 2022,” he said.

Application to declare jacaranda trees provincial heritage

Pretorius said even the City of Tshwane supported the initial request, but this was turned down.

He said that there was clear heritage value to jacaranda trees.

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“Pretoria is known as Jacaranda City, this should be an indication of the intrinsic heritage value of these trees if the capital of the country got its beloved heart name from this.

“In Gauteng, there are around 65 000 trees in Pretoria and 70 000 in Johannesburg,” he said.

Pretorius said despite the trees’ origin being South America, the first jacaranda tree was planted in 1885 in Durban and in 1888, the first two seeds of the tree were planted in Sunnyside.

First trees planted in 1880s

Archaeologist and historian, Professor Anton van Vollenhoven said the e-mail from Phrag only indicated they did not want to declare it as a heritage because it was an alien species.

“It’s an absolute misunderstanding of the Act. I do not understand how they first could have said no, it’s unacceptable, it’s not on. The whole issue of it being an alien plant was discussed in the motivation of the application and was one of the reasons why it can be seen as heritage because heritage is about what people do.”

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“People decided they liked the tree and they brought it to Pretoria and planted it here and they liked it so much they planted more and more of these trees and it became more and more a part of the capital city,” he said.

Van Vollenhoven said if one looked at the legislation regarding alien plants, jacaranda as an alien or unwanted species was on the “better” list.

“In fact, they indicate that the jacaranda was acceptable in certain places, including in Pretoria.

Jacaranda an alien species

“This shows the decision was against our legislation regarding the natural environment.”

Van Vollenhoven said the tree was so important to the residents of Pretoria that they believed if one of its flowers fell on the head, one would definitely pass their exams.

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“It actually shows how people have come to celebrate the jacaranda and make it part of their culture. It even has a folktale. You wouldn’t have that if the tree wasn’t important,” he said.

Van Vollenhoven said another indication of the importance of the jacaranda was all the poems and songs written about the tree.

“There is this actual love for these trees, it enhances the social value the people have for it. The age-old battle of who had the most jacarandas between Johannesburg and Pretoria also tells you how important the trees were to the people that they fought over who had the most trees.”

Love for these trees

“Johannesburg claims to have the most trees, but when asked why Johannesburg didn’t turn purple like Pretoria, they would say the trees were spread further apart,” he said.

Phrag has yet to comment.

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