Historic Trees

Jacaranda trees (Jacaranda mimosifolia D. Don) are native to South America and first came to Pretoria in 1888. A travelling nurseryman called Tempelman sold two jacaranda seedlings to Jacob Daniël (Japie) Celliers, who resided at Myrtle Lodge, 146 Celliers Street, Sunnyside.

In 1939 these trees were fenced in as a protection measure. A plaque was also placed at the site to commemorate the event. This was unveiled by the Mayor of Pretoria, Ben Swart, on 8 November 1939. This indeed indicates that jacaranda trees were seen as important to the city. It is said that many of the jacaranda trees in the city originated from these two so-called ”parent trees”.

The Plaque (AC van Vollenhoven)

One of the first two Jacaranda trees in Pretoria. Both are still going strong. (AC van Vollenhoven)

In 1898 Celliers secured a concession from the government to plant trees in Groenkloof. He ordered the seeds, which included jacaranda seeds, through a Pretoria businessman, James D Clark. Clark also donated 200 jacaranda trees...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie traces some of the history of Joburg's urban forests and identifies some of the earliest known trees in the city. The piece was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 21 August 2003. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

It’s hard to believe when you stand on one of Johannesburg’s ridges and look out over the virtual forest that makes up the northern suburbs that the city used to be barren, rocky veld dotted with an odd shrub and several streams.

Joburg has the distinction of being one of the world's largest man-made urban forests, with several million trees in public parks, private gardens, and on pavements. On satellite pictures, the suburbs are a green splodge of colour, closely resembling a rain forest.

Mine dumps to the south, urban forests to the north (Google Maps)

The highveld is a typical savannah/grassland system, which means that besides grassland and scattered scrubs, there are no naturally occurring trees. So how did this forest begin, and who planted those first trees?

Before gold was discovered in the area in 1886, there were several farmers on the Witwatersrand. These early farmers brought seeds from the Cape and planted acorn, oak and walnut trees. The Bezuidenhout family, among the first white...

In 2020 Arderne Gardens turned 175. This wonderful, 4.5 hectare arboretum in Claremont, Cape Town, is filled with trees of great girth and height, together with plants from all over the world, some over 100 years old. For many decades wedding parties have posed for photographs under the great Moreton Bay Fig with its enormous surface root system spreading in all directions like a nest of huge Boa Constrictors. This mighty tree is known throughout Cape Town as The Wedding Tree. The Gardens are a picnickers’ paradise. They are flourishing today as a result of a private citizens’ initiative [Friends of Arderne Gardens or FOTAG], which ensured this urban treasure island would revive, survive and continue to offer great public pleasure after one of several periods of neglect and decay. But let’s go back to the beginning.

The Wedding Tree (Clare Gibbon)

Roots like cobras (Clare Gibbon)

Ralph Henry Arderne arrived in Cape Town from England in 1830 to start a second life. His first wife and infant had died in...

The wonderful story below appeared in the Nelspruit Post on 21 February 2018. Thank you to the team from Mpumalanga Heritage and The Lowvelder for giving us permission to publish.

Last week a lot was said and much was speculated about the large sycamore fig in front of the old Land Bank building in Bester Street in the old town centre. The tree stands well preserved and cared for in an enclosure of its own, and not without reason. This was to protect what is without a doubt the tree with the most historic significance in old Nelspruit - and to my mind in the whole of Mbombela. This was after some readers contacted us to remind us of a discovery once made under the shady leaves of that tree, which sent us to the archives of Lowveld Media, publishers of Nelspruit Post.

Not only was this indigenous tree rooted here long before the town of Nelspruit ever existed - before it was surveyed and laid out parallel with the old Eastern railway line, or Oosterspoor, between Pretoria and Lourenco Marques in the 1890s. For many years its generous shade was also home to the first smithy ever to open a business in the Lowveld.

When the Land Bank was built in the early 1950s, this modern and cleverly designed two-storey building, with window screens constructed at an angle measured to screen off the harsh Lowveld afternoon sun, was set a few metres deeper from the sidewalk than its neighbouring structures...