Indigenous Tree identification in Newlands Forest

INDIGENOUS TREE IDENTIFICATION IN NEWLANDS FOREST

Professor Tjakie Naudé, Department of Private Law, University of Cape Town

Saturday 8 February  8.30–11.30 am  COURSE FEES R250; Staff and students R200

Maximum number of participants 15

MEETING POINT The sliding gate at the Newlands Forest Fire Station parking area at 8.30 am

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 an inspiration to protect our precious natural areas. This is an indigenous tree identification course in lower Newlands Forest, for a small group which can comfortably gather near a tree. 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 and come down by way of Littlewort Trail. Participants should therefore be fit enough to manage this.

When 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, where these highlight characteristic features of the tree (e.g. ‘stellatifolia’ is ‘star-leaved’ for wild almond).

Please wear comfortable walking shoes and bring a hat and water.

Recommended reading

iNaturalist page with all 479 plant species observed in Newlands Forest: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=164858&view=species&iconic_taxa=Plantae

iNaturalist list of trees in the Cape Peninsula: https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/3729107-Trees-of-the-Cape-Peninsula/

Trees in Table Mountain National Park on the iNaturalist Trees of Southern Africa ID project website: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=71668&project_id=trees-of-southern-africa- id&view=species

TreePro – The Tree App – South Africa (paid by annual subscription)

There are various tree guides in book form. (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.) Details available on request.

TO BOOK: https://www.webtickets.co.za/v2/performance.aspx?itemid=1554655787

Tjakie Naude is a professor of Private law at the University of Cape Town. She was trained by retired botanists and other members of the Dendrological Society (AtalayaBranch) on tree identification in the early 1990s. She is co-curator of the following iNaturalist projects:

Trees of Southern Africa ID,

Trees of Southern Africa List, and The Many Faces of Chinese Privet.

She is also a volunteer for the Rhodes Memorial / Newlands Forest Hacking Group and the Sugarbird Trust. This role includes identifying plants and teaching members how to identify plants. Tjakie also tries, with modest success, to influence policy and law on biodiversity protection, particularly with forests in mind.