MAJESTIC marulas are among my favourite trees, partly because they are so eye-catching.
Fairly large trees of the African savannah they really stand out in our game reserves, what with their distinctive pale, motley bark, finger-like branches, eye-catching pink and white flowers and their attractive rounded crowns.
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Marulas (also sometimes known as maroelas) go by the rather lyrical Latin name of Sclerocarya birrea. They make good garden subjects and are fairly fast growing. I bought a tiny sapling at the Skukuza indigenous nursery in Kruger National Park some years ago and it has flourished in my coastal garden where it has already grown into a fairly substantial tree.
They are also extremely useful trees. Insects are attracted to their flowers, and the leaves are browsed by game. As anyone who ventures into our wild places would notice, elephants are partial to their bark.
According to Richard Boon’s excellent guide to our eastern trees, ‘Pooley’s Trees’, one of the excellent publication produced by the Flora and Fauna Publications Trust, this species is the food plant of a number of moths and butterflies. Some marula trees are completely stripped of their leaves by caterpillars that then cover the denuded tree with a silvery web. Amazingly, Mother Nature’s rather drastic pruning efforts do not seem to affect the trees too much.
Their tart but tasty fruit is also very useful. Marulas fruit abundantly and when we were in Kruger National Park recently the ground around them all was covered in the pale yellow, apricot-sized fruit.
The elephants and other animals love the fruit and so do humans, who turn it into jams, jellies and even tasty alcoholic concoctions.
Of course the marulas are not the only indigenous trees and bushes that produce tasty, vitamin-rich fruit. They Kei apple, amatungulu and waterberry trees are among the many local producers of delicious, nutritious and useful fruit.
I do think we’ve rather neglected to explore the commercial potential of our proudly South African fruit, concentrating of foreign imports instead. Of course, commercially grown alien fruit trees like apples and pears have their place here but some alien fruit can become problematic. Guavas, American brambles and mulberry trees have all earned a place on our invasive alien list.
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