Drypetes gerrardii | |
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At Umtamvuna Nature Reserve, South Africa | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Rosids |
Order: | Malpighiales |
Family: | Putranjivaceae |
Genus: | Drypetes |
Species: | D. gerrardii |
Binomial name | |
Drypetes gerrardii | |
Drypetes gerrardii is a species of small tree or large shrub in the family Putranjivaceae. Common names include forest ironplum, bastard white ironwood, and forest ironwood. [2] It is native to tropical and subtropical central and eastern Africa. It was first described in 1920 by the English botanist John Hutchinson, [3] who named it after the English botanist William Tyrer Gerrard who collected plants and seeds in southern Africa in the 1860s. [4]
Drypetes gerrardii is a small tree or large evergreen shrub, growing to a height of about 20 m (66 ft). The trunk is fluted and buttressed in larger trees, and the bark is smooth. Small branches and twigs are squarish in cross section and are clad in golden hairs when young. The leaves are alternate and held in one plane. The blades are ovate to elliptic and up to 15 cm (6 in) long, shiny dark green above and pale green below with a felting of pale hairs on the leaf stalk and the midrib. The leaf margin is entire or lightly toothed and the tip acute or acuminate. Male and female flowers are found on separate trees; they are small, yellowish-white and hairy, male flowers being in a group in the axil of a leaf, and female flowers being solitary. The fruits are fleshy, hairy, spherical drupes up to 1.5 cm (0.6 in) in diameter, ripening to a yellow or orange-red colour. [4] [5]
This tree is native to Central and Eastern Africa, where its range extends from South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya, southwards to Angola, eastern South Africa and Eswatini. [5] In South Africa it is found in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces. [2] It grows in drier evergreen forests, in riverine corridor forests, and sometimes in wetter rain forests, as well as in scrubby habitats, at altitudes between 600 and 2,300 m (2,000 and 7,500 ft). [5]
As a small tree, the timber of Drypetes gerrardii is not traded but is used locally for poles, tool handles, furniture, utensils and pestles. It is also used as firewood and for making charcoal. The flowers are nectar-rich and attract honeybees and the fruit is edible. The tree has limited use in traditional medicine, a decoction prepared from the roots being used for abdominal pain and powdered leaves and roots being used to treat gonorrhea. The tree is sometimes grown to provide shade. [5] [6]
The conservation status of this tree is said to be of "least concern" in South Africa. [2] It is in general a common tree in dry evergreen forests. [5]
Quercus montana, the chestnut oak, is a species of oak in the white oak group, Quercus sect. Quercus. It is native to the eastern United States, where it is one of the most important ridgetop trees from southern Maine southwest to central Mississippi, with an outlying northwestern population in southern Michigan. It is also sometimes called rock oak because of its presence in montane and other rocky habitats.
Ironwood is a common name for many woods that have a reputation for hardness, or specifically a wood density that is denser than water, although usage of the name ironwood in English may or may not indicate a tree that yields such heavy wood.
Aralia spinosa, commonly known as devil's walking stick, is a woody species of plant in the genus Aralia of the family Araliaceae. It is native to eastern North America. The various names refer to the viciously sharp, spiny stems, petioles and even leaf midribs. It has also been known as Angelica-tree.
Conocarpus erectus, commonly called buttonwood or button mangrove, is a hardy species of mangrove shrub in the family Combretaceae.
Carpinus caroliniana, the American hornbeam, is a small hardwood understory tree in the genus Carpinus. American hornbeam is also known as blue-beech, ironwood, musclewood and muscle beech. It is native to eastern North America, from Minnesota and southern Ontario east to Maine, and south to eastern Texas and northern Florida. It also grows in Canada. It occurs naturally in shaded areas with moist soil, particularly near the banks of streams or rivers, and is often a natural constituent understory species of the riverine and maritime forests of eastern temperate North America.
Androstachys johnsonii, the Lebombo ironwood, is a medium-sized Afrotropical tree species, and the sole member of the genus Androstachys in the Picrodendraceae. It is slow-growing, evergreen to deciduous, and dioecious, with flowers that are wind-pollinated. It is native to southeastern Africa and Madagascar, where it generally occurs gregariously on rocky hillsides, particularly in hot and dry situations. It produces a hard, durable wood which is of economic interest. Its specific name commemorates W. H. Johnson, a 19th-century Director of Agriculture in Mozambique. Four related species which are native to Madagascar, are usually placed in genus Stachyandra.
Olea capensis, the black ironwood, is an African tree species in the olive family Oleaceae. It is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa: from the east in Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, south to the tip of South Africa, and west to Cameroon, Sierra Leone and the islands of the Gulf of Guinea, as well as Madagascar and the Comoros. It occurs in bush, littoral scrub and evergreen forest.
The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions of Africa are discontinuous, separated from each other by lower-lying areas, and are sometimes referred to as the Afromontane archipelago, as their distribution is analogous to a series of sky islands.
Neolitsea dealbata, also known as white bolly gum, hairy-leaved bolly gum, or simply bolly gum, is a shrub or small tree in the laurel family Lauraceae which is native to New South Wales and Queensland in Australia.
Aglaia spectabilis is a species of tree in the family Meliaceae, found from the Santa Cruz Islands in the southwest Pacific to Queensland (Australia), Southeast Asia, Yunnan (Zhōngguó/China) and the Indian subcontinent. It grows from a 1m shrub to an emergent 40m tall tree, depending on the habitat. Its wood is commercially exploited as timber, but otherwise is of poor quality with limited use. The fruit are eaten, and used in folk medicine. The seeds are large in comparison to other plants, and a major source of dispersal of the species are hornbills eating the fruit, flying away from the tree and regurgitating the seeds.It is also found in Assam, India
Decaspermum humile, commonly known as the silky myrtle, is a tree from Australia and Asia. It can be used as bush food, as indicated by the alternate common name of currant myrtle. The tree features an attractive dark glossy crown. The new pink leaves with silvery hairs are particularly appealing.
Zanha golungensis, commonly known as the smooth-fruited zanha, is a species of plant in the family Sapindaceae that is native to Africa. It is used locally for timber and herbal medicine.
Parinari excelsa, the Guinea plum, is a species of large, evergreen tree in the family Chrysobalanaceae. It has a very wide distribution in tropical Africa and the Americas. This species grows to 50 m (160 ft) tall while the trunk is up to 1.5 m (5 ft) in diameter.
Euclea crispa, commonly known as the blue guarri, is an Afrotropical plant species of the family Ebenaceae. The hardy and evergreen plants may form a dense stand of shrubs, or grow to tree size. It is widespread and common in the interior regions of southern Africa, and occurs northward to the tropics. Though some are present near the South African south and east coasts, they generally occur at middle to high altitudes. It is readily recognizable from its much-branched structure and dull bluish foliage colour. Those bearing lanceolate leaves may however resemble the Wild olive, another common species of the interior plateaus.
Psychotria capensis, the bird-berry, is a southern African evergreen shrub or small tree. It belongs to a genus which is used medicinally in many regions, 'Psychotria' being from the Greek for 'rejuvenating', in reference to the healing properties of certain species. Kew lists some 2,000 species of Psychotria growing throughout the warmer regions of both hemispheres, but only two of them occur in southern Africa, namely P. capensis and P. zombamontana.
Neocussonia umbellifera is an evergreen to semi-deciduous Southern African tree of 15-20m growing in escarpment and coastal forest in Malawi, through eastern Zimbabwe and Mozambique along the east coast to South Africa, as far south as the Garden Route. It belongs to the Araliaceae or Cabbage Tree family, and was formerly placed in the genus Schefflera, created by J.R.Forst. & G.Forst. in 1776 to honour the 18th century German physician and botanist Johann Peter Ernst von Scheffler of Danzig, and not to be confused with writer and physician Jacob Christoph Scheffler (1698-1745) of Altdorf bei Nürnberg.
Mimetes hottentoticus is an evergreen, upright shrub of 1½–3 m (5–10 ft) high from the family Proteaceae. It has silvery, broadly egg-shaped to egg-shaped leaves with three small teeth crowded at the tip. The flower heads and subtending leaves form a cylindric inflorescence, topped with a tuft of smaller, more or less upright silvery or pinkish leaves. Each flowerhead contains 8–12 flowers with conspicuously red styles, that are all parallel, projected straight up, pushing against the leaf subtending the higher flowerhead. The styles end in a short white zone topped by a thick blackish pollen presenter. Flowers can usually be found from January till March, few may persist into May. It is called silver pagoda or matchstick pagoda in English and Hottentotstompie in Afrikaans.
Drypetes arguta, commonly known as the water ironplum, is a species of small tree or large bush in the family Putranjivaceae. It is native to tropical East Africa. It was first described in 1920 by the English botanist John Hutchinson, who named it Cyclostemon argutus. It was later transferred to the genus Drypetes.
Cassipourea malosana is a species of plant native to tropical Africa.
Drypetes wightii is an evergreen tree species endemic to the Western Ghats, India. The species is considered Vulnerable under the IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species.