Afrocarpus falcatus, Yellowwood

Yellowwood is one of the grand trees of Africa and reach their largest size high up in the Drakensberg mountains of S Africa, where individuals may grow to 45m, while in poorer, dry sites it may only grow to 10m.

Features include:

  1. flaking bark revealing purplish brown patches
  2. an upright tree at first then growing with a domed crown
  3. Few branches spread out to support dense foliage
  4. Foliage consists of waxy blue-green to yellow green needles 2-4cm long
  5. Leaves are fire retardant
  6. the wood makes good to excellent and durable timber
  7. Grows into a large tree in higher rainfall areas but will do well enough in drier areas down to about 500mm, where it will form a shorter tree with a decent crown
  8. Can live up to 600 years
  9. Would make a keystone tree in silvo-pasture programmes throughout tropical and warm temperate Australasia
  10. Suited to carbon sequestration forestry

Tree shape

Upright, boadly conical to dome shaped

Mature size

Giant 20m+

Growth rate

Moderate-fast

Use

Shade, carbon store, firewood, ornamental, windbeak

Soil type

Moist, deep and well drained

Water

Drought hardy, frost hardy to -5C or so

Foliage

Narrow, sickle shaped needles

Origin

S Africa