Peripheralia: Phylogenetic Memory

Abstract

In our garden, here in the Last Outpost, we have two fever trees. Their bark shines with that soft iridescent yellowy-green colour. They were called fever trees because they were often found in such places as the Lowveld where tropical infections such as malarial were common. Rudyard Kipling’s Elephant Child mentioned them when he came to “the banks of the great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo river, all set about with fever trees”. In isiZulu the fever tree is called umKhanyakude (khanya: light, kude: far), the light that can be seen from far way. Its botanical name is even more of a tongue twister, viz: acacia xanthophloea (xanthos: yellow, phloios: bark). Here endeth the botany lesson.