Happy holidays from Wild Zambezi

Wild Zambezi wishes all its friends and colleagues a festive holiday season.  We look forward to welcoming you in the Zambezi Valley and on Lake Kariba in 2010.

Please note that our seasonal card is a composition specially designed to show the wonderful natural decorations that can be made from wild tree species native to the Zambezi Valley.

The leaves are of the Sausage Tree, Kigelia africana a spectacular riverine tree with exotic deep-red flowers and enormous sausage-like fruits up to 30-40 cms  long which hang down from its branches.  The beautiful, gold-sprayed, four-winged pods which twirl in the breeze if attached on a long thread, are from the Large-fruited Bushwillow, Combretum zeyheri.  Similarly the Wooden Pear, Schrebera trichoclada, has attractive fruits which, when dry, split open to make pretty hanging decorations.  And finally, no Zambezi Valley decorative display would be complete without the curly pods of the Apple-Ring Acacia, Acacia Albida, favourite snack of the elephants in Mana Pools World Heritage Site.

Here's a website link for enthusiastic botanists interested in the plants of Zimbabwe (and those wanting to know more):  Zimbabwe Flora