Erythrina zeyheri leaflet

The large leaflet of Erythrina zeyheri shown here has hard, yellowish cream prickles scattered along the big veins on its surface. This is actually a leaflet, one of three forming part of a trifoliolate leaf comprising three leaflets. The word leaflet, suggesting something small, is misleading here, really referring to part of a full leaf of no particular size. Leaflet dimensions for this plant are about 26 cm long by 21 cm wide, on petioles of up to 20 cm long.

Resources in the subterranean suffrutex annually produce new above-ground stems and these large trifoliolate leaves close to the ground, as this tree has its stems below ground. Clearly, the plant seeks the leaves not to be browsed or interfered with excessively, hence the prickles. While some animals may think twice, leaves will be sacrificed in the bigger hunger, therefore they are produced in abundance. Remaining leaves serve to feed the more permanent below-ground plant parts through photosynthesis from the sunlight on the grassland.

Growing in grassland where fires ravage the dry grass during most winters, the plant is well prepared from subterranean trunks where veld fire doesn't kill. It is thought that such a plant may be hundreds, even thousands of years old (Prof. Braam van Wyk in www.fse.org.za), surfacing via a colony of seemingly independent “growth points” for all to see, while it keeps big buried secrets (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Pooley, 1998; Van Wyk and Malan, 1997; iNaturalist).