Marulas, eles and me
Mid-summer in the Lowveld is marked by the sudden flush of
ripe Marula fruits falling from trees all over the reserve. For those that don’t
know, the marula fruit is a small golf ball-like fruit, green when unripe and
on the tree, turning pale yellow and falling to the ground when ripe. I say
golf ball-like not just because of the size and shape of the fruit, but because
the noise they make as they hit the tin roof above my head every two minutes is
very similar to the sound a golf ball would make!
The vast majority of the
fruit is made up of a large, hard and virtually impenetrable stone, within
which are seed kernels. The stone is the wrapped in a sour but juicy pulp and
covered in a tough skin. Once the skin is removed you can suck on the pulp like
a gobstopper until you get down to the stone. It might not sound that appealing
to you but they really are delicious and good for you, with around 4 times the
Vitamin C content of an orange! The pulp is used to make all sorts of things like jam and jellies, beer and even the famous South African liquor "Amarula".
And it’s not just us humans that enjoy them, virtually
every fruit-eating animal on the reserve goes nuts for them…especially the
elephants!
At the GVI Karongwe base we are blessed with a number of
large and fruitful marula trees in our garden. It is not an uncommon occurrence
in mid-summer to be woken up to a strange slurping sound outside my bedroom
window, the sound of elephants sucking up the fruits from the ground using
their trunks and squelching them in their mouths. This is what I woke up to at
midnight last night and I instantly felt a giggle burst from my mouth. I jumped
out of bed and peeked out my window to see in the bright moonlight a gaggle of six
female elephants and their calves peacefully enjoying the marulas less than five
metres from my window. Now awake, I then became aware of a less peaceful flurry
of activity going on at the front of the house. One of the bull elephants was
squeezing himself between two of our parked research vehicles in the driveway
to get himself to the best marula tree in garden. But much to his consternation
there weren’t any fruits waiting for him on the floor (because I had already
gathered the fallen ones up that morning to make jam) so he took it upon
himself to shake the tree hard enough to cause all the ones still attached to
fall to the floor. The chaos that followed involved branches cracking and
snapping and falling with a crash on the cars, marula fruits flying and banging
on the car and the elephant trumpeting and huffing and wheezing in the effort
and joy of his success. Needless to say he managed to detach far more fruits
than he intended to eat and we woke up this morning to find the cars and
surrounding areas littered with debris from the tree, making walking to the
vehicle a treacherous and ankle-twisting activity!
Just one of the perils of living in the African bush I suppose!
Rosie Miles
Karongwe Base Manager
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