Page 23 - D11 Dainfern Precinct Living December 2021

NATURE

Two stationary vehicles were ahead
The instinctive, genetic programming of elephants and a huge, fully grown marula tree
seems to be transforming the landscape. a few metres from them was being
violently rocked to-and-fro. The cars
drew back as the tree tilted over
f you enter Kruger Park at What is particularly noticeable along more and more until, with much
Phabani Gate near Hazyview this road is that many of the marula creaking and splintering, it reached
Iand travel east towards Skukuza, trees are dead. They have been so far over that it snapped off near
you reach, after 4km, a crossroads. snapped off near their bases, others its base.
If you turn right there on to the S3 have been severely damaged.
towards Pretoriuskop, you’ll notice a The tree’s wide crown blocked
phenomenon that is puzzling many What’s happening? the route to Skukuza. It was only
scientists. then that we were able to see the
In September, having gone through elephant that had killed it. It was
There are several marula trees along Phabeni Gate on our way to a male and, surprisingly, not a
that route, each standing alone Skukuza on the Doispan Road, we particularly big one. As it strolled on
and hundreds of metres apart, as had a dramatic glimpse of what is to the road, a second male appeared
marulas tend to do. They are sturdy, happening. and the two began picking at the
easily-recognisable trees with single
trunks that branch out halfway up
to support a dome-shaped crown.
The trunks have a mottled, flaky grey
bark and, in winter, their branches
end in characteristic finger-like stubs
rather than conventional twigs.

In February, a mature marula
can produce half-a-ton of highly
nutritious sweet, damson-sized
berries full of vitamin C. These
berries are the basis of South
Africa’s great liqueur export,
Amarula, a velvety smooth cream
liqueur that can sell at hundreds of
rands a bottle.

Elephants devour the marula
berries, sometimes to the exclusion
of anything else. Marula trees near Pretoriuskop wrecked by elephants.
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