African Wildlife Environment Issue 75 FINAL

There are also a couple of excellent Facebook sites for tree lovers – Remarkable African Trees and Trees in Africa . Going back to the challenge on hand of writing something stimulating and different I can say that for me this last quarter has been one of the most interesting in my own ‘Tree-life’ as I have ‘discovered’ a number of new morphological factors, factors that most, if not all, tree-book authors (including the taxonomists that have written all the scientific prose about the species) have either ignored or did not know! There is a very good reason why I keep finding new things and discovering remarkable stuff about our Bushveld trees in particular, and that is because for more than ten years now ‘we’ have been working on a new book on the trees in Kruger Park, and at last the end is in sight. All through these years I have been ‘pushed’ by the main author, who is an analyst by profession, and so he keeps asking me why I recognise this tree or that? He keeps asking me what exactly are the diagnostic criteria I have tucked away in my brain that allow me to be definitive? But can I put these criteria into words or instruct him to take a photograph of a specific feature that is 100% diagnostic? Thisman also takes themost stunning photographs because they have to be as excellent as possible to be chosen for use in the book (so it takes him a lot of time to get each and every photograph as perfect as possible). Thus, having been cajoled into unpacking just what it is that allows me to make a certain identification, I have learned a whole lot more about our trees than I ever thought was possible. But today

today’s world where ‘Dr Google’ rules, anyone with access to the internet, and or a few good tree books on their bookshelves, can compose a piece on trees.

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Oncoba spinosa fruit