Greyia radlkoferi

Greyia radlkoferi, the woolly bottlebrush or wollerige baakhout (woolly direction giver wood) in Afrikaans, is a small, deciduous tree of up to 5 m in height (SA Tree List No. 445). The branches are smooth and yellowish when young, grey and furrowed later.

The leaves are alternate and round, oval or heart-shaped, clustered at stem-tips. They are thick-textured, almost fleshy and sparsely hairy above while densely hairy below. The margins are lobed and toothed.

The flowers are red and bell-shaped with conspicuously protruding red stamens. The flowers grow in densely crowded racemes. Blooming happens late winter and early spring, simultaneously with the appearance of the young leaves.

The species distribution is in the northeast of South Africa, in KwaZulu-Natal and the Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

The habitat is rocky cliffs and gullies of the Escarpment mountains, along streambanks and evergreen forest margins. 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).