Boscia albitrunca
| Family: | Capparaceae |
| Full name: | Boscia albitrunca (Burch.) Gilg & Benedict |
| Location: | Along D1985 (2215DC) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Witgat, Witstamboom, Groot-Witgat, Grootwitgat, Grootwitgatboom, Witbasboom, Witgatboom, Witstam, Witteboom, Jentelmanstam, Kaboom, Koffie, Koffieboom, Matoppie, Noenie, Noenieboom |
| English common name(s): | Shepherd tree, Shepherds tree, Shepherd's tree, Caper bush, Coffee tree, Emigrants tree, White stem, White-stemmed tree, Whitetrunk sheperdstree |
| Synonym(s): | Boscia pechuellii Kuntze Boscia puberula Pax fide Fl. S. Africa 13: 153 Boscia transvaalensis Pestal. Capparis albitrunca Burch. Capparis oleoides auct. - sensu Marloth-- misapplied name Capparis punctata Burch. |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Small to medium-sized tree with a typically whitish bark and a rounded crown. Leaves mostly clustered on hard woody spurs along the branches, oblanceolate to elliptic, grey-green; veining almost invisible. Flowers axillary in dense branched clusters, small, without petals, greenish, sweetly scented. Fruit round, c. 10 mm in diameter, hairless, yellow when ripe. (from Flora of Zimbabwe website) Tree or rarely a shrub, up to 7 m high, usually with well-trimmed round or flattened crown. Branches sometimes drooping when young becoming stiff, usually not spinescent. Leaves usually fascicled rarely alternate to subopposite; lamina oblanceolate, elliptic or linear, usually obtuse or abruptly tapering at the apex, mucronulate, usually broadly cuneate at the base, 1.5-5(-8) cm long, 0.3-2.5 cm broad, coriaceous, grey-green, secondary veins hardly visible on both sides, pubescent or glabrous; petiole 0.2-1 cm long, usually pubescent. Sclereids in the mesophyll with poorly differentiated foot, bent or often of irregular shape, rarely reaching the middle of the leaf, often in clusters, usually similarly well developed on both sides of the leaf. Inflorescence axillary, racemose, often with flowers fascicled or almost so; pedicel 0.4-1 cm long, pubescent or glabrous. Bracts setaceous, sometimes trifid, usually pubescent. Sepals elliptic to ovate, 2-3 mm long, pubescent particularly on the margin. Corona a fleshy -ring, denticulate. Stamens 6-15; filaments 3-5 mm long, glabrous. Gynophore 2-3 mm long, glabrous. Ovary ovoid with 8 ovules, with indistinct stigma on style c. 1 mm long. Berry spherical or almost so, 0.5-1.2 cm in diameter, smooth, glabrous, yellow, with 1 or 2 seeds with colliculate surface. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora of Southern Africa) Much-branched tree up to 10 m tall; crown dense and rounded; bark smooth and whitish; trunk stout. Leaves alternate or fascicled 2–4 together on very reduced side-shoots; lamina 3–5 x 0.7–1.2 cm, coriaceous, oblanceolate or narrowly oblong, apex rounded or retuse or very rarely acute, mucronate, narrowed to a cuneate or narrowly rounded base, puberulous on both sides or glabrescent, midrib prominent beneath, nervation scarcely visible; petiole 1–3 mm long, puberulous. Inflorescence of very short, dense, axillary racemes; peduncle almost 0, rachis pubescent; bracteoles 1.5 mm long, filamentous, pubescent, trifid with the middle lobe longest; pedicels up to 5 mm long, pubescent. Sepals 4 x 2.5–3 mm, ovate-oblong, apex subacute, very minutely puberulous outside, pubescent within, densely so at the margins; receptacle disk-like, papillose-fimbriate. Stamens 6–14, on glabrous filaments c. 5 mm long. Gynophore c. 3 mm long, glabrous; ovary ovoid, glabrous, with c. 10 ovules on 2 placentas; style 0.5 mm long, glabrous; stigma subcapitate, scarcely wider than the style. Fruit up to 1 cm in diam., globose, yellowish, glabrous, smooth. Seed usually single, c. 0.7 cm in diam., subglobose, rugose. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora Zambesiaca) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien iNaturalist (Namibia / Alex Dreyer) iNaturalist (Namibia) iNaturalist (southern Africa) Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie Tree Atlas of Namibia |
| Photographer: | AA Dreyer |
| Date of photograph: | 13 Jun 2008 |
| Camera make: | Canon |
| Camera model: | PowerShot A700 |
| Lens aperture: | f/4.0 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/500 s |
| ISO speed: | - |
| Content last updated: | 18 Apr 2024 |
