Southern African Mopane Tree Botanical Illustrations and Photographs

Summary: Mopane tree botanical illustrations and photographs show bark, leaves, twigs and wood that serve up construction, dental, herbal and musical products.

mopane (Colophosphermum mopane) foliage, pod and seeds by Scottish botanical illustrator Walter Hood (Feb. 28, 1817-Jan. 14, 1892) in George Bentham's description: "A. Copaifera Mopane, Kirk. Fig. 1, Pod, cut open, showing the seed; Fig. 2, Seed, cut open, showing a section of the testa, one cotyledon, and the radicle; 3. Transverse section of the seed.": Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, vol. XXV, part II (1865), Tab. 43, Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Mopane tree botanical illustrations and photographs allow admirers of edible, silk-spinning mopane caterpillars to appreciate the African insect larva's associated namesake hostplant whose bark, leaves, pods and wood accommodate people and wildlife.

The African tropical woody plant member of the Fabaceae bean, legume and pea family brings in such beneficial insects as nectaring, pollinating mopane bees (Plebeina hildebrandti). The five instars of mopane worms, as caterpillar stages of the mopane moth scientifically called Gonimbrasia belina, consume mopane tree leaves despite the foliage's turpentine taste. Mopane psyllids (Arytaina mopani and Retroacizzia mopani) and silkworms (Gonometa rufobrunnea) digest mopane tree foliage whereas leaves and seed-filled pods draw baboons, elephants, giraffes and rhinoceroses.

Mopane tree botanical illustrations expose bark for tanning and twine; leaves for digestion and wounds; twigs for toothbrushes; and wood for charcoal construction, fire and instruments.

December through January and April through June respectively furnish semi-deciduous mopane trees, whose older foliage only falls when October-sprouting shoots flourish with flowering and fruiting months.

Drought-, flood- and heat-tolerant, mature, 13.12- to 59.06-foot (4- to 18-meter-) tall mopane trees grow at 656.27- to 4,921.26-foot (200- to 1,500-meter) altitudes above sea level. High-calcium, high-lime alkaline soils with 7.87- to 17.72-inch (200- to 450-millimeter) average annual rainfall and high-silt alluvial soils from African tropical floodplains harbor hardy mopane trees. Distribution ranges for mopane trees with their deep-, vertical-furrowed, gray-brown, rough bark, include habitat niches in Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Mopane tree botanical illustrations and photographs juggle underneath cracked bark non-cracking, oily, red, termite-resistant wood with heavy densities of 2,866.01 pounds (1,300 kilograms) per cubic meter.

Africans know of mopane tree wood for traditional braai barbecue charcoal; slow-heating, sweet-smelling fuel; and, with giraffe thorn (Acacia eriolaba) and leadwood (Combretum imberbe), traditional firewood.

Mopane tree wood looks reddish as fence poles, floor coverings, lampstands, mine supports, railroad ties, sculptures and wind instruments and yellowish as aquarium and garden decorations. Mopane trees, mentioned scientifically by George Bentham (Sep. 22, 1800-Sep. 10, 1884) and John Kirk (Dec. 19, 1832-Jan. 15, 1922), make rich-resonating, warm-sounding wind instrument wood. Mopane trees, noted scientifically by Jean Joseph Gustave Léonard (1920-April 23, 2013), narrow rising demand, reduced supply curves for Dalbergia melanoxylon wood in Mozambique ebony clarinets.

Mopane tree botanical illustrations and photographs offer hanging, small, yellow-green flowers at the edges of branches with intense green spring and summer and multi-colored fall foliage.

Mopane tree foliage provides more proteins than mopane tree fruits whose flat, kidney-shaped pods produce fleshy, green, single-spotted, sticky 1.97-inch- (5-centimeter-) long, 0.79-inch- (2-centimeter-) thick seeds.

Colophospermum mopane, from the Greek Κολοφών ([rosin-rich Ionian city of] Kolophón) and σπέρμα (spérma, "seed"), qualifies as the scientific name of branching, narrow-crowned, round-canopied mopane trees. The English equivalent "oily seeds" refers to the mopane tree's reliable reproductive means and to the resinous edibles that African mammals relish over mopane tree foliage. Tea leaf-tasting mopane tree segments sometimes stay inside the intestinal tracts of yellow-fleshed mopane worms sun-dried for cooked, fried, salted, smoked side dishes or for soups.

Mopane tree botanical illustrations and photographs tender shrubby, wildlife-friendly trees whose bark, flowers, fruits, leaves and wood tackle 16 countries' construction, dietary, fuel and musical markets.

Tall mopane (Colophospermum mopane) woodlands are known as cathedral mopane; South Luangwa National Park, eastern Zambia; Tuesday, May 31, 2005, 06:36: Hans Hillewaert, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

mopane (Colophosphermum mopane) foliage, pod and seeds by Scottish botanical illustrator Walter Hood (Feb. 28, 1817-Jan. 14, 1892) in George Bentham's description: "A. Copaifera Mopane, Kirk. Fig. 1, Pod, cut open, showing the seed; Fig. 2, Seed, cut open, showing a section of the testa, one cotyledon, and the radicle; 3. Transverse section of the seed." Day & Son Limited, lithographers, London, England: Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, vol. XXV, part II (1865), Tab. 43, Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/27408674

Tall mopane (Colophospermum mopane) woodlands are known as cathedral mopane; South Luangwa National Park, eastern Zambia; Tuesday, May 31, 2005, 06:36: Hans Hillewaert, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cathedral_mopane_forest_-_South_Luangwa_Valley.jpg

For further information:

Bentham, George. 1865. "Description of Some New Genera and Species of Tropical Leguminosae: 5 ?. C. ? (Coleospermum) Mopane, Kirk, sp. n. (Plate XLIII. A.)." Read May 4th, 1865. The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, vol. XXV, Part the Second (1865): 317. London, England: Taylor and Francis, MDCCCLXV.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/27408660

"Colophospermum mopane (J. Kirk ex Benth.) J. Léonard." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/13051074

Léonard, J. (Jean Joseph Gustvae). 1949. "Notulae Systematicae IV (Caesalpiniaceae-Amherstieae africanae americanaeque): Colophospermum Mopane Kirk sp. nov. in sched. (Fig. 35)." Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de l'État à Bruxelles, vol. XIX, fascicule 4 (December 1949): 390-391. Meise, Belgium: Botanic Garden Meise.
Available via JSTOR @ https://www.jstor.org/stable/3666831?seq=8#page_scan_tab_contents

van Wyk, Braam; and Piet van Wyk. 2013. Field Guide to Trees of Southern Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Struik Nature.

van Wyk, Piet. 2013. Pocket Guide: Trees of Southern Africa. Revised and updated by Braam van Wyk. Cape Town, South Africa: Struik Nature.