Tree_Fuchsia-Schotia

3e version - April 2004

Schotia brachypetala

Tree Fuchsia

The Schotia brachypetala is a tree that is native in South-Africa. His English common name is Tree Fuchsia. The original population of South-Africa names him Weeping Boer-bean or Huilboerboom. This denomination thanks the tree to the pods with in it eatable seeds, literal is the translation then also 'farmers bean'. Of the roasted seeds the 'Voortrekkers' made a coffee substitute, the so-called 'Voortrekkers coffee'. Those seeds are also very beloved by birds and animals. When using by people this drink seam to clean blood, it prevents suffering from gastric juice and it combats a 'hang-over'.

In the common name the word 'weeping' refers to two factors. On the one side to the parasitair 'foam cicada' who lives in this tree, on the other side to the abundant quantity of trickling down nectar that is present in the flowers. An other - less probability - explanation for this word would refer to the weeping and lamenting that was to be hear in the camps of the 'Boeren' when their coffee ran low and there then wasn' t standing a Schotia in the environs of a camp.

The tree can reach a respectable height of about 22 m. The round crown has wide spreading branches. The fair hardy not quickly growing Schotia brachypetala is in the counties of origin a populair tree for application in the garden.

In spring the Tree Fuchsia has a kaleidoscopic of colours. Clusters of bright, waxy crimson flowers attract many birds and insects. Remarcable are the little flowers. They are incomplete and are missing the petals. The sepals form together a miniature cup, which is filled with nectar. Birds as the Sunbird ( a species of hummingbirds) are mad of it.

The flowers are also a source of food for monkeys and baboons. By there play these animals then often bite off leaves. The young redbrown leaf becomes soon bright green and lateron glossy darkgreen, what lively contrasts with the close clusters of crimson flowers.

- June 2001