Wild fruits again - Wild medlar

The word medlar is an older English word for apples although to me, this tree's fruit taste like dried plum sweets that you can buy from Asian groceries: not too sweet and a little like guava. Not many of the trees bore fruit this year and I notice that a fair amount of the fruit on them has gotten a fungus. I suspect that is because the rains were late this year and then it was wetter than usual. This is another fruit that has more seed than fruit flesh but what is useful about these fruits is that they dry on the tree and can be picked and stored and reconstituted by soaking in water for a few hours

These trees are very slow growing and fairly small and stunted but they survive at all in this environment by their ability to grow in among the rocks, which protect them from fire. The seeds germinate fairly easily but there aren't many of them growing on the hill because of the regular fires experienced here. The area where they grow has some fairly large slabs of rock that act as a firebreak

Medlar tree leaves often have extremely odd-looking growths on their leaves, which is caused by a mite and is quite odd to see.

This tree is well-known all over South Africa and today I met one of the people who live in the next road. She has seen me wandering around picking fruit and asked how I get access to the area, as she recognised the tree as something that grows in her home village in another province and would like to pick some fruit, too. I like the thought that the fruit isn't just going to waste.