Rapanea melanophloeos

Rapanea melanophloeos, commonly known as Cape beech, Kaapse boekenhout or isiCalabi, is a dense, graceful, evergreen tree that is native to the afromontane forests of Southern Africa. Outside forests they are also commonly encountered along stream banks and in gullies.

Cape beech
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Primulaceae
Genus: Rapanea
Species:
R. melanophloeos
Binomial name
Rapanea melanophloeos

Distribution

Fully grown Rapanea melanophloeos in native afro-temperate forest near Cape Town.

The natural range of this stately tree is from Cape Town in the south, to Zambia in the north. In the Eastern Cape it is sometimes found alongside its smaller coastal relative, Rapanea gilliana. Despite its common name it is not a close relative of the familiar Beech tree of the northern hemisphere, and it is actually more closely related to the Rhododendrons.

Description

Rapanea melanophloeos is a dense, graceful, evergreen tree. Its leaves, stalks and berries often have a purple or maroon color. This tree is usually dioecious (male and female flowers on different trees) and birds are attracted by its tiny, dark purple berries. The specific name 'melanophloeos' means 'black bark' and resulted from a mistaken identification of the source tree as Swartbas (Diospyros whyteana).

Cultivation

Rapanea melanophloeos tree in Harold Porter National Botanical Garden.

Rapanea melanophloeos is cultivated as an ornamental tree and screening shrub in gardens, and as a potted bonsai specimen. It is hardy and grows well in windy areas and near the coast. Once established, the plant is reasonably drought tolerant and has low maintenance needs.

The plant sends up suckers from its roots that eventually become new trees, and so is best not planted adjacent to paving.[1] Rapanea grows easily from seed.

Fruits
Fruits and seeds
gollark: ?tag create blub Graham considers a hypothetical Blub programmer. When the programmer looks down the "power continuum", he considers the lower languages to be less powerful because they miss some feature that a Blub programmer is used to. But when he looks up, he fails to realise that he is looking up: he merely sees "weird languages" with unnecessary features and assumes they are equivalent in power, but with "other hairy stuff thrown in as well". When Graham considers the point of view of a programmer using a language higher than Blub, he describes that programmer as looking down on Blub and noting its "missing" features from the point of view of the higher language.
gollark: ?tag blub Graham considers a hypothetical Blub programmer. When the programmer looks down the "power continuum", he considers the lower languages to be less powerful because they miss some feature that a Blub programmer is used to. But when he looks up, he fails to realise that he is looking up: he merely sees "weird languages" with unnecessary features and assumes they are equivalent in power, but with "other hairy stuff thrown in as well". When Graham considers the point of view of a programmer using a language higher than Blub, he describes that programmer as looking down on Blub and noting its "missing" features from the point of view of the higher language.
gollark: > As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is looking down the power continuum, he knows he's looking down. Languages less powerful than Blub are obviously less powerful, because they're missing some feature he's used to. But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction, up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equivalent in power to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good enough for him, because he thinks in Blub.
gollark: Imagine YOU are a BLUB programmer.
gollark: Imagine a language which is UTTERLY generic in expressiveness and whatever, called blub.

References

  1. "Rapanea melanophloeos | PlantZAfrica.com". www.plantzafrica.com. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
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