Calodendrum capense

A well-shaped tree with a single trunk and a dense rounded canopy, growing up to 7m, but may reach 20m in a forest envirnment.
The flowers are large and pink and carried in conspicuous terminal panicles.

Calodendrum capense does best in deep fertile, well-composted soil with plenty of moisture, particularly during spring and summer, and requires a warm sunny position. To develop and maintain its shapely canopy, it requires protection from strong, sustained winds, like Cape Town's south-easter. Young plants require protection from frost, but established specimens should be able to survive in Zone 9 (-7°C / 20°F) When grown in bitterly cold areas, it is likely not to flower very well.

Calodendrum capense is propagated by seed or cuttings. Seed can be sown as soon as it drops in late summer to autumn, or kept refrigerated and sown the following spring or summer. Sow in deep trays in well-drained soil. Germination should take 10-40 days but may be erratic with older seed. In colder climates, bottom heat should be used. This tree has a relatively long juvenile phase and will rarely flower until it is 7 or 8 years old.

Cuttings should be taken from new growth in spring to early summer, treated with a rooting hormone and rooted under mist using bottom heat. Trees propagated by cuttings should flower in 4 to 5 years.
Young trees transplant easily and under ideal conditions can grow nearly 1 m in a year.

It occurs along the south and east coast of southern Africa from around Swellendam in the Western Cape through the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Gauteng, North West and Northern Province and into tropical Africa as far north as Tanzania and Ethiopia, and grows mainly in forests and kloofs (ravines / gorges), but occasionally in scrub and riverine bush, from sea-level to 2000 m.

Calodendrum capense got its common name because William Burchell (1782-1863) thought that the flower and fruit resembled the horse chestnut. It is, however, not closely related to the chestnuts.

A very ornamental tree, suitable for use as a shade or specimen tree in gardens and parks, also as a street tree.

The timber is white or light yellow, fairly hard but bends well and is easily worked. It is used for tent bows, wagon-making, yokes, planking, shovel handles, and furniture, and is considered one of the most generally useful hard woods.

The bark is used as an ingredient of skin ointments and is sold at traditional medicine markets. Seeds are crushed and boiled to obtain oil that is suitable for making soap.

The Xhosa believe that the seeds have magic properties, and hunters used to tie them around their wrists when hunting to bring them skill and good luck.

Samango and vervet monkeys, and rameron and olive pigeons, cinnamon doves and Cape parrots eat the seeds. The larvae of several butterfly species, including the orange dog (Papilio demodocus) which also uses other citrus family trees, breed on the foliage.