Re: African tulip tree

Nan Sterman wrote:
> 
> I have read that African Tulip tree grows to 50 feet tall but all the
> trees I've ever seen in Southern California top out around 15 feet.
> What is your observation?  How tall do they grow in your area?
> 
Hi Nan
There seems to be a good deal of dissention about how high this tree can
grow.

My very old East African Gardening lists it for Uganda under "Indigenous
Plants" as S. nilotica and suggests a maximum of 40 feet, while the NZ
edition of Botanica claims as much as 80 feet!! There is often a
tendency anyway for plants, particularly woody ones, when taken to a new
country to do better in the new home than the old. Nursersymen from
South Africa, for instance, have been amazed by the marvellous Proteas
we can produce in NZ. 

We had a whole  avenue of these trees on our Kenya farm which would have
fallen well within its preferred altitude range (altitude within the
tropics is one of the main determiners of climate) but I doubt any of
the trees would have been much over 25 feet. I think from what I can
make out this was mainly due to low rainfall. The Uganda climate,
influenced a good deal by the infant Nile which traverses it, is
defintely a good deal wetter.

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand, SW Pacific. 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Time
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