733.
Camphor Bush Tarchonanthus camphoratus (Wildekanferbos, Vaalbos)
Order: Asterales. Family: Asteraceae
Pilanesberg
Description
Evergreen shrub or small tree, 4-8 m tall, Slender, usually crooked trunk, and a bushy crown, usally much-branched with a narrow crown; bark brown or grey, rough, longitudinally fissured, exfoliating in long strips; young stems densely covered by white felt-like tomentum.
Leaves leathery, narrow, spirally arranged, oblong to elliptic, greyish-green above and greyish-white and velvety underneath. Finely-wrinkled, smell of camphor when crushed.
The creamy-white flowers are borne in a branched inflorescence on the terminal end of the branch. Bunches of white-grey fluffy flower heads, more or less covered in white woolly hairs. Each flower up to 1.2 cm long.
The fruit is small nutlet covered with fluffy cottonwool-like hairs, and are produced mostly in March to November. These woolly, white fruiting heads are strongly scented and most attractive. Male and female flowers are borne on separate trees.
Distribution
Native to Angola, Ethiopa, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbawe. Provincial distribution in South Africa: Free State, Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West.
Habitat
It grows in thickets of bushveld, grassland, forest and semi-desert. It grows mostly in sandy soils in the low-lying and sand forest of the coast.