Practical indigenous tree identification in Newlands forest

Professor Tjakie Naude

 

Date: Saturday 18 May

Time: 8:30 to 11:30

Booking is via Webtickets: Practical indigenous tree identification in Newlands forest: Professor Tjakie Naude (webtickets.co.za)

Maximum: 15 participants

When you learn how to identify plants, you often see even more of the beautiful details of each plant, which is a source of awe and joy, and inspiration to protect our natural areas. This is an indigenous tree identification course in Newlands forest, for a small group. After stopping at some trees on the way to the stone bridge, we will look at trees a little higher up in the more pristine indigenous forest, by way of part of the Woodcutters Trail and come down by way of the Littlewort Trail. Participants should therefore be fit enough to manage this. In the course of identifying individual trees, the presenter will point out what features are relevant to the identification process, e.g. whether the leaves are simple or compound, whether the leaves are opposite or alternate, whether the edge of the leaf (leaf margin) is untoothed (entire) or has teeth or serrations, the pattern of the thorns, etc. Explanations of the meanings of the common names of trees (e.g. ‘assegai’ or ‘bokdrol’ or ‘wild almond’) will also be given, and sometimes the botanical names too where these highlight characteristic features of the tree (e.g.’stellatifolia’ =  star-leaved for wild almond).

 

No reading is required in advance, but this might be helpful:

  • Trees in Table Mountain National Park (of which Newlands Forest forms part) on the iNaturalist Trees of Southern Africa ID project website (105 species, some of which are alien invasive trees; open source website):

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=71668&project_id=trees-of-southern-africa-id&verifiable=any&view=species

(If you click on each species name, it gives more information, including what it could be confused with, and also all photos (observations) of that species in the area)

 

 

  • iNaturalist list of trees in the Cape Peninsula (includes alien trees, more than 250 trees):

https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/3729107-Trees-of-the-Cape-Peninsula\species

 

  • TreePro – The Tree App – South Africa (paid by annual subscription – a useful phone app if you want to get into tree identification more seriously)

 

  • There are various tree guides in book form too. (Eg Eugene Moll wrote a small one with just a drawing of the leaf of each tree, easy to carry around, or the Van Wyks have a medium size soft cover book with photos too, etc). Details available on request.