Secamone alpini ready for its support tree to grow

The bright green leaves of Secamone alpini, the monkey rope or in Afrikaans bobbejaantou (baboon string) are opposite upon the stems, here elliptic to oblong in shape and their margins entire. Near the tendril-like stem-tips the leaf pairs are far apart from vigorous growth in the rainy season, coiling around stems of every available neighbouring plant.

The soft, full of life upper stems will also loop and twirl around other branches of its own kind or around other parts of the plant from which they grew themselves. This does not help much in the quest for attaining height, as there is nothing sturdy in young monkey rope tips. Climbers depending on climbers will fall flat, causing monkey rope plants germinating too far from a tree to gravitate into leafy mattresses on the ground, unlikely to be of much use to monkeys.

The Vachellia karroo sapling providing service to its needy neighbour here lives in the Mjejane Game Reserve, the area enjoying good weather after ample summer rain. Once the thorn tree gains height, the bobbejaantou will come into its own (Pooley, 1998; iSpot).