
South Africa’s National Tree –
The Yellowwood Tree
Scientifically it goes by Afrocarpus Henkelli, Afrocarpus Elongatus, Afrocarpus Falcatus and the Afrocarpus Latifolius from the Podocapus genus. Otherwise known as our beautiful and years long protected species of yellowwood trees. With its fascinating narrow blue-green leaves and bark that has smooth greyish tones to brown tones it has a spectacularly characterized look. Familiarly known as the Breede River Yellowwood to us in South Africa where it grows natively.
The Yellowwood tree is protected under section 12 of the National Forests Act, 1998. This act ensures ‘no person may cut, disturb, damage, destroy or remove any protected tree; or collect, remove, transport, export, purchase, sell, donate or in any other manner acquire or dispose of any protected tree, except under a license granted by the Minister’ – it should be known that doing any of the above without approval granted by the minister will lead to a hefty fine of up to R5 million and/or imprisonment of up to 15 years.
This act was set in place as the yellowwoods were previously over harvested in many places to the point of extinction. The yellowwood tree has been an indigenous species to South Africa for over 100 million years. Well known to be heavily used as timber for its even grain pattern and hardy wood. It has been used for the early construction of railways, house beams and flooring to furniture, wagons and wooden chopping blocks butchers used as the wood is not scented and hardy so it would not taint the meat. Yellowwood furniture is now considered rare to find and these pieces are well known to be pricey.
Some of the Yellowwood specimens are known to be about 600-800 years old! There have been entire generations of families and wildlife who have benefited from these trees. The local birds enjoy the fruits of the yellowwood. A few of the birds you may see savouring these fruits are cape parrots, a variety of pigeons like the African Olive pigeon and delagogue’s pigeon, even turaco’s (better known to us as louries!). The yellowwood is even a favourite nesting spot for the cape parrot.
The yellowwood will reach great heights of 20m-30m in its natural habitat and will grow in your garden to suit its environment. They can be propagated as bonsais in your home while we have the famous Outeniqua yellowwood in Tsitsikamma that has reached an impressive height of 36.6m. These trees are slow growers but their beauty is worth the wait as they also do not have any serious disease or pest problems. If the yellowwood ever does become a target for infection it actually creates its own synthetic antibiotics which work at getting rid of multicellular fungi, otherwise known as hyphae.
Luckily the yellowwood is a true portrayer of ensuring its own livelihood as it sheds its bark frequently which impedes the binding of hyphae to the tree which keeps it secure of disease causing agents. The yellowwood tree we know in the Western Cape, Afrocarpus Elongatus, is also tactical in its approach to its own longevity method over years of broken limbs and being knocked over; As this tree was mainly found close to rivers.
The Afrocarpus Elongatus has the ability to shoot out new sprouts from its epicormic buds when damaged. The Western Cape Yellowwood is the only yellowwood that has this ability. These shoots growing from the epicormic buds repair damage to the tree generated from falls, an injured crown and broken branches.
In a sense the use of this tree throughout the years has not just been about planting something to beautify your landscape and its use as timber but to uphold our heritage and biodiversity. The fruit feeds wildlife, the timber has aided in the building of homes and furniture. The planting and maintenance of our national tree is of utmost importance in the upkeep of our national biodiversity.
