Ochna serrulata emerging fruit and stamen remains

The red stalk of an Ochna serrulata flower morphing into its fruiting stage is about 1,5 cm long. Whitish lenticels are visible on the olive green branchlet at the top.

The pointed blades of the enlarged sepals recurve at the top around the fruit pedicel. The ring of red wiry protrusions around the fruit, at the perimeter of the receptacle are the remains of the stamen filaments. At least the oblong anthers used to be yellow when there was still a flower, and the style and stigma were greenish yellow. The also yellow petals that normally drop off early in this species were in a ring outside the stamens, inside the sepals.

Pretty and admired as this plant may be when flowering in its habitat, the species is an ecological headache in Australia and New Zealand, where it has become invasive. This is just one of the pests we have bestowed on those countries in exchange for some Hakea and Acacia species from down under that South Africans battle with. All these invader species exchanges were made in ignorance of what would follow, rather than manifestations of international goodwill.

Not all immigrants are frowned upon or met by xenophobia. O. serrulata is still loved and cultivated in Hawaii… land where all plants are immigrants, their status only differing in arrival date or seniority (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Pooley, 1993; iNaturalist; iSpot; Wikipedia; www.plantzafrica.com).