Dombeya pulchra

Dombeya pulchra, commonly the silver dombeya and in Afrikaans the silwerdrolpeer (silver turd pear), is either a shrub of 1 m to 4 m or a tree up to 7 m in height (SA Tree List No. 470.1).

The large, soft leaves are broadly ovate. The leaf has a lobed base, tapering apex and toothed margins. There are five to seven prominent veins from the leaf base. The under-surface is whitish, covered in short hairs.

The species differs from D. burgessiae in its pale leaf undersurfaces, the pink petal bases and the cooler, moister natural habitat.

The distribution lies in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal; also in Swaziland. The habitat is forest margins and riverine bush in high rainfall areas. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002; http://redlist.sanbi.org).