African Wildlife & Environment Issue 80

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

Growing up with the ACACIA KARROO

Eugene Moll

In 1950, when I was in Standard 2 (now grade 4), my father, who worked for the then Rhodesia Railways, was transferred to Broken Hill (now Kabwe). We lived in 36 First Street, on the northern edge of the Railway Housing Estate, separated from the town, one kilometre away, by a remnant patch of Miombo Woodland.

In this Miombo patch (see A frican Wildlife and Environment 66 [2017]: 51-52) there were two, small, face-brick buildings: a Guide Hall and a Scout Hall, that at the time were used as overflow classrooms by the school. My classroom was in the Guide Hall, just through the hedge and a 100-metre walk along a typical African, single-file, dirt pathway that wound its way through the elephant grass under the trees. This Miombo Woodland patch stretched for about 3-4 km east to west and was dominated by huge scattered Brachystegia spiciformis (Msasa) trees,15-20 m tall, with an occasional very large Parinari curatellifolia (Grys-apple or Mubuni [the Shona name] or to me Mapundu [for the fruits that were delicious as long as they were properly ripe, otherwise they are extremely astringent]). Further west, down the catena, the shorter trees included Diplorhynchus condylocarpon (the Horn pod), plus various others like Faurea and Monotes . My father told me he used to make bird-lime from the milky latex of Diplorhynchus . For me it was my 'chewing-gum tree', as I found that with patience one could collect and coagulate enough of this latex to manufacture very chewable gum. But to us kids it was the few huge termitaria that were magical. These were small, steep-sided hills, maybe ten m in diameter and five m high, that were topped by one or two huge fruiting trees and surrounded by a perimeter-thicket thick of spiny woody shrubs and climbers that made a tangled, almost impenetrable, mass that was confined to the hill by the annual veld fires.These mounds were ideal places to build 'forts', from which opposing 'clans' could sally forth as marauding 'impis'. In the school holidays I would often ride my bicycle, taking my dog, and go north along the railway line to sandy Miombo patches where species of Uapaca grew in groves.The fruits of U. kerana (known as Mehboob [English] and Mushuku [Shona]) were one of my most favourite bush-fruits, being very sweet, and the ridged pips could be spat out for several metres.

Figure 1. Typical paired fruits of Diplorhynchus, green and delight fruit-eaters once ripe

Figure 2. A lone Parinari tree in the sour grassveld near Pretoriuskop, Kruger Park

16 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 80 (2021)