Schotia afra var. afra

Schotia afra var. afra is the southerly variety of the attractive red-flowering, small-leaved boerbean, commonly the Karoo boerbean (SA Tree List No. 201.1). The bark is grey to dark grey and fairly smooth, longitudinally fissured on old trees. Sometimes scrambling untreelike in coastal thicket vegetation, the boerbean may also stand alone, its rounded crown reaching 5 m in height. The branches are rigid, the tree evergreen, flowering from later winter until after midspring.

The distribution of this variety is in the Western Cape, from Montagu and Swellendam through the Little Karoo, and along the coast to the Eastern Cape around Gqeberha.

The habitat is coastal thicket and fynbos, also karoid scrub in moist to dry regions, often near streams. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Venter, 2012; Coates Palgrave, 2002; iNaturalist; https://redlist.sanbi.org).