The EDGE of AFRICA ‘Circles in a Forest’ Walk 13/09/10

This walk is named after the book of the same name which was written by Dalene Matthee, an internationally acclaimed South African author who wrote many books about Knysna, South Africa and the beautiful forest which surrounds it.  After Dalene died (20th February 2005) a memorial was placed at the start of this walk and the walk was renamed the ‘Circles in a Forest’ walk in her honour.

This is the first time that Edge of Africa volunteers have participated in this historic walk.

The EDGE of AFRICA contingent

Jo 1 and Jo 2, plus five of the volunteers: Fiona and Liam, Cara and Sebastian – all from the UK, and Larissa from Germany.

The Guide

Hynie was our wonderful and very knowledgeable, guide!  He has taught over 5,000 learners about the forest.  Hynie is just about to retire – which is a very great shame!

A bit about the Knysna forest elephants

The ‘official word’ is that there are currently between one and three elephants living in the Knysna forest.  Elephant researcher Gareth Patterson’s latest estimate is that there may be up to 9 elephants; while Hynie’s expert guesstimate is that there are approximately 12 elephants in the forest: +/- 6 females, 2 calfs and +/- 3–4 bulls!

One of the bull elephants comes close enough to be seen, quite regularly.

BUT, It is a rule of the forest NEVER TO MENTION THE ‘E’ WORD. . .

So, I have to report that:

Unfortunately, we did not see any ‘bigfeet’ today on this walk!!!

A bit about the forest

●          In the past over 50,000 hectares of forest was destroyed.

●          Presently, there is only approximately 60,000 hectares of forest remaining, but this is

now protected and the indigenous forest is being actively encouraged to grow back.

●          In about 30 years time we will (hopefully!) be back up to over 100,000 hectares again.

The forest has five layers:

i)  At the bottom is the Herb Layer.  The definition of a herb is ‘a non-wooden plant’;

ii)  Next is the Shrub Layer;

iii)  Then comes the Sub-Canopy Layer.  This consists of trees which don’t need that much sun.  These trees are constantly changing direction and therefore grow in what Hynie calls an ‘untidy’ fashion;

iv)  The Canopy Layer.  This consists of trees which need a lot of sun to survive;

v)  The Emergant Layer.  Only a very few trees grow out of the canopy, but these trees stand out high above the other trees.

We looked at examples from all five of these layers during our walk, but there is only room here to describe:

The Indigenous Hardwoods

1.  The first indigenous hardwood that we came across was the Yellowwood; the ‘Big Tree’ of the forest.  There are actually two types of Yellowwood: the Real Yellowwood or ‘Upright’ (Podocarpus latifolius) and the Outeniqua Yellowwood or Kalander (Podocarpus falcatus).  We saw both types on this walk.

To give you some idea about how big this tree is, the huge Yellowwood standing to the right of the Dalene Matthee Memorial at the entrance to the Circles in a Forest Walk is estimated to be approximately +/- 880 years old, is 40 metres in height, has a diameter of 1.78 metres and the contents of its bole measure 34 metres3.

Yellowwood leaves are thin with smooth edges, and taper to a sharp point.

2.  Not too far from the entrance, on the main track, we came across a Quar (Psydrax obovata).

In Dalene Matthee’s book ‘Circles in a Forest’ this is one of the trees that the woodcutters could climb quite easily to get away from the bigfeet.  Another such tree is the White Alder, which is not a hardwood.

This tree is loved by airplants (epiphytes).  Hynie drew our attention to a tree orchid which had made its home on this tree.  These tree orchids are very scarce.  The one living on this Quar has been there for 10 years at least (that was when Hynie first noticed it) and Hynie has never seen it flower in all that time. 

3.  Next, Hynie stopped next to a White Pear (Apodytes dimidiata).  I can only describe the bark of this tree as being very similar to, though not quite as white/silver as, an English Silver Birch tree – due to the large white splodges all over its trunk.

4.  Shortly afterwards came a Hard Pear (Olinia ventosa).  The bark of this tree was reddish and flaky – and looked very similar to a smaller version of the giant sequoia (giant redwood) trees of the USA.

5.  Soon we came across an Ironwood (Olea capensis macrocarpa), the fifth indigenous hardwood.  The wood from the Ironwood tree is the hardest wood in the forest.  It is also the most difficult to work.  In the olden days this wood was used mostly for railway sleepers, but later on Yellowwood was used.

This tree is very unique and quite easily distinguishable for two reasons: i) it gets a disease called ‘crocodile skin’ which, as the name suggests, gives the bark the appearance of the skin of a crocodile and ii) when the tree is hurt it ‘bleeds’: it gives off a resin which seeps out around the wound and turns the area around the wound black.  Most, if not all, of the Ironwoods that we saw during our walk today had these black areas on their trunks.

Ironwood leaves are narrowly elliptic, tapering to a pointed tip.  The edges of the leaf are smooth and quite wavy.

6.  Further down the path we came across an Assegai (Curtisia dentata).  One way to be able to tell this tree is that its bark looks like the skin of an elephant. 

The leaves of the Assegai have pointed tips and strikingly serrated edges, which are scalloped between the teeth.

7.  By this time we had turned off the main path onto the elephant path, and a little way along we found a Stinkwood (Ocotea bullata).  It is easy to confuse the bark of this tree with that of the White Pear except that the bark of the Stinkwood has chickenpox-like bumps all over it.  The wood from this tree is the rarest, most expensive wood of all.

Leaves from this tree are easily distinguishable from other leaves because they are usually pockmarked, and have two small conspicuous bubbles (‘bullata’ means blistered), protruding at the base of each leaf.

8.  Finally, we came to the Candlewood (Pterocelastrus tricuspidatus), the eighth indigenous hardwood of the forest and last on our list.  Interestingly, this tree can be multi-stemmed and the trunk is very often fluted.  All of the Candlewoods that we saw during this walk had moss-covered trunks.

The leaves of this tree are beautiful oval leaves – one of the few leaves that are not pointed, which makes the Candlewood’s leaves very easy to identify.  Also, the thick central vein on the leaf is yellowish and raised at the base of the leaf – but peters out before reaching the leaf-tip.

Walk Statistics

Start time:10.20 am

Finish time: 2.05 pm

But we did A LOT of stopping and looking at trees and listening to birds, etc, so it wouldn’t usually take this long!

By Jo Stewart

UK

EDGE of AFRICA Volunteer