By JP Felu
Family: Sapindaceae (The Litchi family)
Botanical name: Pappea capensis
Common names: Jacket Plum, Indaba tree; Ndebele: Isagogwane; Shona: Chitununu
This indigenous tree is characterised by its beautiful, delicious fruit. The Jacket Plum can be found all over Zimbabwe, but is not one of our dominant species. The fruit can be made into a tasty jelly. I believe that the fruit can also be used to make wine and even vinegar. The seed itself is the source of a fine oil and could be exploited to make bio-diesel. In Bulawayo the most famous Jacket-plum is the Indaba Tree, growing in Lobengula’s kraal (now State House).
The tree is of medium size, anything from 3 to 10 m or more, and is mostly single stemmed. The flowers are greenish, and male and female flowers are borne on separate trees. The pericarp (the jacket around the fruit) is round, green, and velvety and splits open to reveal the fruit. The bright red flesh has dark brown to black seeds imbedded within. When this tree is in fruit the display is really magnificent.
Unfortunately, certainly in Matabeleland, the fruiting is irregular and sometimes it would appear that no flowers are produced at all. I knew trees at Hillside and CBC in Bulawayo that never bore fruits, but I also knew a particular tree near Ncema which produced masses of fruits that I collected to make jelly.
The Jacket-plum, apart from being attractive to birds when in fruit, is also browsed by many species of game and domestic cattle and is the larval food for some Charaxes butterflies. There are many medicinal uses of this tree. A leaf infusion can be used for multiple eye problems and nose bleeding. The bark is used for prevention of witchcraft and an infusion of the root is used as an aphrodisiac.
More info for the tree enthusiasts:
The family Sapindaceae comprises around 1500 species, mostly from tropical and high rainfall areas. The plant characteristics that dictate the classification as Sapindaceae are rather obscure, at least to me. Pappea is named after a German physician and plant collector Carl Pappe, while the specific name capensis refers to the Cape area. This family of trees is represented in Zimbabwe by Allophylus africanus, (the African False Rhus, but perhaps it has now become the African False Searsia), Dodonaea viscosa (the Sand Olive), Erythrophysa transvaalensis, (the Bushveld Red Balloon which, to my knowledge, occurs only in the vicinity of the Khami Ruins in Bulawayo), Lecaniodiscus fraxinifolius, (the River Litchi, which we saw at Hippo pools), Zahna africana, (growing at Christonbank) and our Pappea cappensis whose distribution is widespread but never dominant.
Sources:
Coates Palgrave, K. 1977. Trees of Southern Africa, Struik, Cape Town
Gelfand et al., 1985. The Traditional Medical Practitioner in Zimbabwe, Mambo Press, Harare