Euclea divinorum, the magic guarri

East of the escarpment in Mpumalanga and Limpopo, where the land is warmer at lower elevations, you will find the magic guarri in the bushveld. Euclea divinorum is often spotted among the vegetation on termite mounds. Although conspicuous on these small prominences, and in spite of being evergreen in winter when almost everything edible is dry and papery, game and livestock don’t browse the magic guarri leaves.

E. divinorum is not an imposing tree, but useful if you’ve forgotten your toothbrush at home: Break off a small branch and rough up the broken end to release the stem tissues into frayed tips, a makeshift brush for the occasion… been used by many who no longer can tell you the name of the inventor of the device. Make sure, however, that you have identified the tree correctly first, as much in the veld is poisonous.

When this land was pioneered by the Voortrekker people accustomed to shortages in basic resources, some discovered through trial and error that one can make ink from the fruits of magic guarri.

Probably a no-brainer that the fruits were also used, with some success nogal, in the brewing of beer. (What would they not have tried?)

And the bark found its way into the dyeing of basket-ware by indigenous tribes, who also derived several medicines from the tree (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Van Wyk and Van Wyk, 1997).