Aloidendron dichotomum

Aloidendron dichotomum holds a place of honour in the minds of many who know the South African northwest. Some try to give the tree a place in their gardens, but not too many succeed. At the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden in Worcester visitors can enjoy this beautiful and expert planting of quiver trees. The problems involved in growing them are turned into success stories here. The size and grace of these desert-loving trees make visits to the Garden memorable.

The repeated branching of the leaf rosettes, each time into two equal halves called dichotomous branching, is the hallmark of A. dichotomum. On an old tree this phenomenon has already happened many times. The continued repetitions result in the dense quiver tree crown, formed by numerous, similar leaf rosettes. Quite a sight when the tree is covered in yellow flowers in winter.

In Namaqualand a certain local kind of weaver bird uses the few available trees of this tree-scarce terrain, often quiver trees, for building their large communal nests in which hundreds of these little inhabitants reside, in noisy style (iNaturalist; www.plantzafrica.com).