Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra young tree

A young marula may already spread its branches widely. A dense summer crown and a sturdy trunk are notable features at this stage. Come winter and it will be bare, thick finger-like branch-tips pointing at the sky, sensing the command of spring when ambient temperatures rise.

The more impact a plant has on the lives of people, the more thought goes into its significance and its stories. Children have to be educated after all, schools or no schools. Fantasy accumulates in traded lore; faster from increased interest generated by raconteurs, slower when sanitised by pedantic, poor education.

Wise elders know that the story best remembered is the one that widens the eyes and pricks up the ears at the first hearing. Spicing up stories thus serves a purpose, especially for the younger ones; the truth still widely inclusive of unexpected and fun options. The older kids listen respectfully to the same story yet again, having to sit at the only available fireplace. This brings family wealth superior to air conditioning and television in every room. As independent minds grow, kids actively select the plausible from every story handed down across the generations.

The full, embellished version(s) are remembered with some slippage from all the repetitions though, coming in handy when their turn at telling stories to another generation may arrive many years later. The juicy bits now serve the purpose of retaining interest in a sleepy audience with limited attention span. To appraise attention levels, watch the eyes of the listeners, the ears tell you nothing until the one sinks down upon comfortable support.

Marula is highly valued by the people of Africa for main benefits of food, liquor and medicine. So, marula stories are special, having multiplied over many generations; the sexy ones survive with the proven ones.

Try this one: Pregnant women ingest the powdered bark of the marula to influence the coming baby’s gender. How does this work?

Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra is dioecious, i.e. there are male and female trees. The people of the veld will never mistake the sex of their neighbourhood marula trees, even when they are bare in winter, for they know very well where they collected the marula fruits last summer.

How many women will take the bark? And how many desperate women will, irrespective of their educational status? We are all people, not computers, endowed with variable degrees of left brain dominance and logical thinking; also variable tendencies towards gambling and recklessness.

The answer to everything is not yet found. It wasnt 42; respects to Douglas Adams (Coates Palgrave, 2002).