Mistaken Identity

I never told you about my trees. Last year I gathered some seeds from some really tasty fruits that grow on beautiful, big, shady, broad-leaved trees. In February, late summer here, I planted 28 seeds. Most of them sprouted immediately. The remainder sprouted within a month. I’m a lazy gardener so I planted 3-4 seeds per pot, and the pots were small. As they grew they needed to be replanted separately. That’s when I noticed that somehow each seed had produced more than one seedling. Each stem had its own root. So I divided and planted them separately until it was clear I’d run out of bags and pots for them. The rest I left together, figuring they’d probably fuse and grow as one, though trees growing from separate seeds were given their own space. Altogether I counted close to 100 stems and went from tending 10 pots and bags to over 30.

I tended these little seedlings faithfully, making sure they didn’t get too much or too little water, too much or too little sun. They even moved with me as I moved around Mbabane house-sitting hither and yon. That was a mission to load, move, and unload all those plants, and try to keep the back of my car relatively clean. But the seedlings did fine. Some of them had a second transplanting in late September into even larger bags and they showed their appreciation by growing 30-50% taller in just six weeks.

Then I got some bad news. “I’m pretty sure those trees you’re growing are not indigenous,” said the Swaziland botany expert. “In fact they might be a species that’s invasive in other subtropical regions of the world.” Oh no! … Oh no! If that’s true then that means I have to kill my “babies.” I researched and researched to make extra, extra sure she was right before I ended these happy little trees’ lives. Unfortunately, she was right. I nearly cried. It was actually heart-wrenching to know that after all the care and nurturing I had provided to these little innocent creatures I now had to kill them. So, after allowing time to come to terms with it, I uprooted them all in late November.

It was a well-intended cultivation project that could’ve gone terribly wrong if I had been alerted later. I thought I was growing Syzigium guineense, an indigenous tree known as water pear. But instead it was Syzigium cumini, or Java Plum, a tree native to South and Southeast Asia and an invasive in Florida. I intended to plant most of them at schools. I thought, “What a great addition to any school! It’s indigenous and provides a lot of shade, plus the fruits are edible.” Some of my friends also wanted a tree or two for their gardens. But I was mistaken. I had the wrong species. And if the trees had been planted out and allowed to reach their full majestic size and reproductive peak, then 20 years down the road I could’ve been infamous for spreading an invasive alien plant species in Swaziland. That completely goes against the mission of my work here. So wouldn’t that have been ironic.