Rauvolfia afra old bark

The main trunk of a mature Rauvolfia afra tree usually displays bare bark low down, no branches or leaves this low. The trunk reaches up to 1,5 m in diameter, mostly straight, buttressing increasing with age.

The corky raised ridges in the bark are deep and coarse on the irregular, longitudinally fissured patches, the texture non-powdery. Some of this upper bark remains for long or flakes off. The pieces are gradually separated by areas of surrounding younger bark that hardly qualifies as underbark after a certain age. The tones of pale brownish grey are repeated all over the old stem part.

The bark functions throughout the tree’s life as a self-made shield over the transportation veins of life juices up and down the trunk. Living on riverbank and in evergreen forest but often near water, impactful things happen. Some of these events over the many decades, and sometimes more than a century of a R. afra tree's life are violent, even traumatic. Uneven stem surfaces represent the gradually collected evidence of abrasions inflicted. Fortitude ends up written on the weather-beaten stem face of the old forest dweller, patiently withstanding whatever, as it reaches the size and age that bestow the badge of senior citizenship. 

Recorded history of most old trees is patchy as they live mainly unattended by people that periodically and long afterwards attempt reconstruction of unwitnessed events (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002; Pooley, 1993; iNaturalist).