Playing around with things in pots is great fun. A small splinter of a seedling was left in recently by Terence McCaughey after visiting South Africa and our old friend of various libertarian causes - Kadar Asmal. Kadar is now Minister in South Africa for Water Affairs and Forestry. Here in Ireland we make much of the deeply-rooted trees like oak, which draw up from tap roots such huge quantities of water. In South Africa they have a different way of looking at such matters. Oaks or other "invasive alien" trees from Europe are being uprooted in favour of other less water-demanding trees, and water for the human beings is becoming more available.
Other, less water-using shrubs and trees are now more in favour. And the seedling from Terence is an Acacia Karoo/ Sweet Thorn. It is described in the sheet which he got with the seed as "frost and drought resistant"; it grows quickly and is generally deciduous, although it may be evergreen under certain conditions, especially on the South African coast. It is, of course, a relation of the ordinary mimosa, Acacia Dealbata, as you can see from the already-developing inch-and-a-bit seedling.
Not only is it beautiful when grown, with yellow, sweet-smelling flowers, but it is useful for spokes, wheels, yokes and implement handles. "The bark is used for tanning and for weaving ropes and baskets and in traditional medicine." What a tree. Appears in flower in South Africa between October and February, as one woman remembers - "yellow for miles around" she says. As if all that weren't enough, the pods make good fodder (as our own whins do) for livestock, and wild life.
How do we know all this? Well, South African Airways and other airways are giving a small packet of seed with relevant information, as above, to their travellers with the compliments of SAPPI, the S.A. forest products company. Terence kindly passed on one of the seedlings, which will be watched over, as a reminder of South Africa and the Asmals, Kader and Louise. First sight on leaving the airport at Johannesburg, says one traveller, was of flowers in the ditches at the roadside, including Madonna lilies.
At Cape Town you are in a Mediterranean climate. Not the same need for water. Vines all around Stellenbosch. Hope they don't feel they have to do away with the oaks which seem to line every street there.