Garden Route

«« Previous Page | Next Page »»

Secrets of the Forests

Many indigenous forests around the world are under threat due to over exploitiation or inappropriate development. In the Southern cape, most indigenous forests consist of about 100 different types of trees and many smaller plants, fungi, ferns as well as the mammals, birds and insects that make the forest their home.

SECRET A - All Things Are Connected

All plants and animals fulfil an important role in the functioning of the forest. Remove one organism and the whole balance becomes distorted, taking decades or even hundreds of years to recover from the disturbance.

The Outeniqua Yellowwood is one of the biggest trees in the forest. The female tree bears fleshly fruit that the Knysna lourie and fruit bats feed on. Whilst feeding, some fruit falls to the forest floor giving the bushpig the opportunity to feast on the fruit. The bushpig cannot digest the seeds which end up on the forest floor as part of its droppings. These seeds germinate in due time to creat a new generation of yellowwoods.

Each organism has a beneficial effect on at least one other organism. ferns and other undergrowth prevent evaporation and pretect seedings against the severe sunlight as well as provide food for the blue duiker and bushback. Plants such as blue lily and wild garlic form green patches that serve as ground cover minimising soil erosion. They are often dug up and eaten by baboons and porcupines.

The wild grape or monkey rope is lifted up as the trees grow in height. When reaching the upper canopy, it expands over the whole crown of the carrier tree and from there to the crowns of the neighbouring trees. The male double collared sunbird with its red and blue chest can be seen especially amongst flowering plants, as they search for nectar and at the same time help to pollinate the plants.

SECRET B - Forest Shapes

Some trees have different shapes and angles because of the constant searching for sunlight in the dark interior of the forest. Although trees normally grow with a single trunk, many trees, like the White Milkwood, grow multiple stems and in this way ensure the existence of the tree.

Natural disasters like veld fires, strong winds or fallen trees cause gaps within forests. In time, the gaps are closed by younger trees that compete with each other for sunlight. This results in different patches of forest that have different shapes.

SECRET C - Gap Dynamic

At one point a tree will topple over creating a gap in the forest. the sun can now reach more of the forest floor warming it and decreasing humidity. Shade loving ferns will be replaced by pioneer plants able to survive the sunnier, drier conditions. These pioneer plants, whose seeds have been lying dormant in the soil for decades until the right conditions develop, improve the soil and restore humidity.

The seedlings, saplings and stunted trees that have been waiting for this opportunity presents itself and the race will start all over again. Life moves slowly in a forest. Trees can take hundreds of years to grow to full size, some trees never reach maturity. Similarly, a log can take many decades before it decomposes completely and becomes part of the soil.

SECRET D - The Magic of Bark

Trees grow tall in a forest making identification difficult as the leaves and fruit are up in the treetop. The differences between barks of various trees can help in identifying them.

Most trees have smooth (Cape Holly, Wilde Peach, White Stinkwood and Cape Chestnut) or flaky barks (Yellowwoods, False Olive, Wild Olive, Sagewood and Camphor bush), while others like the Cape beech, with the white-pinkish bark, have large corky spots when young.

Abnormal bark development in the form of ring-like, “elephant-skin” or “crocodile-skin” consisting of angular and very thick corky blocks is frequently found on Milkwood and Black Ironwood trees. Another unusual features on these tree trunks is a tarnish of black slime flow from old bark wounds.

The orange colour on many tree trunks like Stinkwood and White pear is ctually lichen. However, the bark of a tree like the Bastard Saffron is naturally orange. The bark of trees like the Hard Pear, cape Ash and Black Stinkwood has medicinal value and is in great demand as a tradtional medicine.

The Gonnabos derived its name from the so called “Gonna Bushmen” who were a small band of Khoi-Khoi people that lived in the indigenous forest in the Southern Cape. They made rope from the fibrous bark of the Gonnabos plants.

[read on]