W&N watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm mixed media paper
Leaves of a Black Karee tree in my garden (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa)
Indigenous to Southern Africa, this tree is a bit untidy with a weird
growing habit of the branches backing up on one another and having most
of its leaves right at the tip of the branches. It has a graceful,
weeping form and dark, fissured bark that contrasts well with its long,
thinnish, hairless, dark-green, tri-foliate leaves with smooth margins.
The small, inconspicuous flowers are presented as much-branched sprays
which are greenish-yellow in colour and are produced from June until
September.
The fruit are small (up to 5mm in diameter), round,
slightly flattened and covered with a thin fleshy layer which is glossy
and yellowish to brown when ripe. The fruits are produced from September
until January, and during that time, my garden is a total mess! And if
it happens to rain a lot, I have hundreds of seedlings sprouting up
throughout the garden. And yet I have never been able to remove one and
grow it successfully …
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