Gardenia thunbergia fruit

Elephants, buffaloes and large antelopes like kudu that still roam some forests of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal would delight in encountering these Gardenia thunbergia fruit. Unfortunately, no such animals visit Kirstenbosch where the photo was taken any longer; not even if entry fees were waived like for pensioners on some days.

People don’t eat Gardenia fruit as the elephants or antelopes do, but admire them and plant G. thunbergia in gardens in the hope of flowers and this visual harvest. The animals serve to disperse the seeds for new plants to germinate.

The fruits are without the longitudinal ribs found on some other Gardenia species. The raised white dots among the grey-green of the surfaces are typical. The woody fruit is about 7 cm long and half that in diameter. The persistent calyx cylinders at the fruit tips are black in the later fruiting stages (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Pooley, 1993).