Africa Wild

Index to Trees & Shrubs in the Order Apiales

Family: Araliaceae
563. Cussonia paniculata Mountain Cabbage Tree viewtopic.php?p=503536#p503536
564. Cussonia spicata Common Cabbage Tree viewtopic.php?p=530603#p530603

563. Mountain Cabbage Tree, Highveld Cabbage Tree Cussonia paniculata
Order: Apiales. Family: Araliaceae

© PJL
Mountain Zebra National Park

Description
A short, thick-set tree, rarely exceeding 5 m in height. It is sparsely branched with grey, longitudinal fissured, thick and corky bark. The stem is thick and squat. This plant is considered a pachycaul succulent on the basis of its swollen stem base or tuber which forms early in plants grown from seed. Roots are also thick and swollen. The tree is slow growing.
The large, digitately compound, cabbage blue leaves are one of its most distinctive features. The leaf colour is in some part due to the thick waxy layers on the leaves, which may help protect them against severe frosts. The leaves are composed of 7-9, but sometimes up to 13 leaflets, springing from the end of a long stalk. The leaflets are up to 30 cm in length and the overall leaf can reach 60 cm. The leaflets of some forms are deeply lobed. New leaves are brighter green and emerge in a spring flush at the ends of branches.
From January to April these trees bear small, green, stalked flowers; in short dense spikes, making up a large, branched inflorescence at the end of the trunk or branches. Flowers are followed by fleshy and purple-maroon fruits, which mature in May to June.

There are two subspecies of Cussonia paniculata. The smaller mountain cabbage tree C. paniculata paniculata has leaflets without lobes and has a limited distribution in Eastern Cape. C. paniculata sinuata forms a larger tree with deeply lobed leaves and is more widespread. This is the form more commonly found in cultivation.

Distribution
It occurs from the mountains of the Karoo and Eastern Cape through KwaZulu-Natal and Free State into Gauteng and further north. It is commonly found near Johannesburg and Pretoria.


Habitat
Cussonia paniculata occurs inland at altitudes up to 2 100 m. The Highveld Cabbage Tree is closely associated with rocky ridges in grasslands and bushveld. It grows in crevices filled with natural organic humus and compost.

Links:
https://books.google.de/books?id=u16BkF ... ee&f=false

564. Common Cabbage Tree Cussonia spicata
Order Apiales. Family Araliaceae

Nelspruit hillside © Richprins

Cussonia spp in general have the peculiar habit of producing their attractive leaves toward the ends of thick branches in large round heads. Trees typically have between 1 - 15 such heads, although older specimens may develop many more.

Description
Medium-sized evergreen tree up to 15m in height, with a much branched rounded crown. Bark grey and corky.
Leaves clustered at end of branches, twice digitate, large, up to 70 cm long with 5-9 primary divisions or pinnae. Each pinna digitately divided again; petiolules often broadly winged.
Flowers small yellowish-green, in terminal umbels of thick-set spikes resembling strange candelabras of microphones.
Fruit angular, 4-6 mm in diameter, purple-brown.

Distribution
Widely distributed in eastern and southern tropical Africa and South Africa (Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, Western Cape; more common in the eastern parts).

Habitat
A tree of open terrain, found on rocky outcrops in montane grassland, bracken scrub and forest margins.

Links:
https://treesa.org/cussonia-spicata/
https://books.google.de/books?id=RpVJJH ... ta&f=false