Combretum caffrum Kuntze

Bark On the main stems the bark colour is buff or biscuit to light grey. It is smooth in places but there are areas where there is incipient flaking and others where flakes have lifted and project appreciably, giving a rough appearance. The colour here is mainly buff. Flakes when removed reveal a light brown sub-surface. From sizes of about 200 mm diameter down, flaking occurs less frequently and the smaller the size the less the likelihood of flaking. Where it is absent the surface is smooth, finely and inconspicuously reticulate and light grey, sometimes slightly mottled. The bark slash is a pale yellow-green. The smooth, light grey, reticulate covering continues on sizes down to about 5 mm with the reticulation becoming less readily discernible. Old wood terminals are also light grey. The previous year's growth is again grey, becoming light brown at the ends with some minor, stringy peeling taking place. Current growth extensions are a light grey-brown giving way near terminals to a light green surface with a grey, appressed, rather sparse indumentum and small, whitish, crateriform scales. Foliage Leaves, most of which are on short laterals at intervals of 5-65 mm, are opposite. The lamina is narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblong elliptic. There is a straight to rounded taper to the base and the apex is acuminate, sometimes finally rounded, but usually running to a point and sometimes very slightly attenuate. Margins are entire and may undulate somewhat, they are also mostly down-rolled-often markedly so. There is little or no veeing about the midrib and some leaves are transversely convex above. The leaf keel is fairly straight. Texture is papyraceous. Maximum lamina sizes noted are 100 x 20 mm but 60 x 14 mm are the calculated average dimensions. The petiole, 3-7 mm long, has a slight basal swelling. The leaf colour above is a rather dark green, the underside is paler and a more yellowish green. Leaves adjacent to inflorescences are very pale, shiny, and of a thinner texture. They return to normal after flowering is over. 'Autumn' colouring, bright red to plum, may only commence quite late in winter. The midrib above may in some cases be slightly raised close to the base but is otherwise shallowly recessed-as are the laterals. Vein colour is paler and yellower than the adjacent lamina. Secondary venation is obscure. There are 4-7 laterals per leaf half. These turn forward before reaching the margins and then disappear but may occasionally be seen to link up with successive laterials. On the undersides, veins are raised and a yellowish green to biscuit. Secondary venation is reasonably distinct. Apart from scales, the upper surface is glabrous. The underside is glabrous except for scales and tufts of whitish hairs in some or all of the lateral vein axils, and possibly some hairs along the main vein base and sometimes on lateral vein bases. The petiole is glabrous, except for scales, to sparsely hairy. Scales may sometimes not be visible on the upper surface but are usually scattered, though sometimes more closely spaced along the midrib. They are small, flat, whitish and occasionally crateriform. On the underside, scales if visible appear to be very small and whitish, except along the main vein where they are larger and whitish to brown. Much larger but ill-defined yellow-green markings on the lamina may possibly also be scales. Inflorescence Flowering time ranges from late August to early November but has also been observed late in March-a second flowering as fruit was also present. Inflorescences occur singly in the axils of short, lateral, new-growth twigs. The spike, up to 13 mm long, but usually much shorter, is pale green, minutely puberulous-hairs being buff coloured-and sometimes lepidote, scales being brownish. There is a dense, subcapitate cluster of up to about 25 flowers, each with a strap-like bracteole up to about 0.7 mm long, puberulous and caducous. The lower receptacle is about 2 mm long with a slight swelling but constricted to a slender stalk where attached to the upper receptacle. It is pale green, minutely puberulous and often lepidote. The upper receptacle is broadly campanulate [as 'companulate'] to cupuliform about 2 mm long and 2.5 mm across at the tips of the sepals, which latter are triangular and up to 0.7 mm long. The calyx is green initially, turning brownish purple, has scattered hairs and is lepidote. The flower is 4-merous and the four petals are a translucent white, spathulate, about 1.2 mm long and project about 1 mm beyond the sepals. Filaments are a translucent white and project up to 2.5 mm. Anthers are pale yellow and about 0.7 mm long. The style is pale green and projects some 1.8 mm. It is exserted before the bud opens. The disc is green, rather sparsely hairy, hairs often projecting beyond the sepals. The overall appearance of the inflorescence is green, brownish purple tinged, with white flecks. Flowers have a pleasant though faint, sweet scent. Fruit can be produced in considerable quantities. It is a 4-winged samara (5, 6 and 7 wings also seen), broadly elliptic to sub-circular in outline. There is usually a broad shallow notch at the base though it can be narrow and deep. The apex, rounded, sometimes bluntly acuminate, is also often notched. Both length and width can be up to 19 mm, the average size being 14 x 12 mm. The apical peg is usually well defined, darkened and up to 1.5 mm long. The stipe, up to 7 mm long, averages 4 mm. Radial corrugations on the wings are very fine. Apart from scales, the fruit is glabrous. Some fruit may be virtually devoid of scales, some have scattered scales on the body with the wings clear, others have contiguous, whitish, waxy-looking scales on the body with those on the wings closely to widely spaced. When still unripe the wings are a lime green and the body brownish. Later, wings become red-flushed. The ripe fruit has biscuit-coloured wings, sometimes dark-spotted with the body similarly coloured though a greyish biscuit when scales are more closely spaced. The seed is cigar-shaped, fairly sharply pointed at the apical end and bluntly pointed to rounded at the base, up to 11 mm long and 4 mm across at mid-point. The seed has four longitudinal grooves. The testa is a dark biscuit and is wrinkled.