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Dovyalis caffra (Kei Apple) - This dense growing evergreen shrub or small tree grows to 10 to 15 feet tall with 1- to 3-inch-long ovate leaves held tight to the stems and having entire or minutely dentate margins. From the leaf axils emerge stout stem spines that are 1 to 2 inches long and quite sharp. It is dioecious plant with small yellow flowers appearing in the spring with female plants producing bright yellow fruits in the fall that taste a bit like apricots and are useful in jellies.
Plant in full sun to light shade in pretty much any soil type. Irrigate this tough plant occasionally to not at all in our coastal gardens. It is evergreen and hardy to 20- 25° F and withstood the short duration Christmas 1990 freeze that had temperatures drop to 18° F at our location. The spines on the branches make this plant a great candidate for a barrier shrub that no animal or person would go through. It can be pruned hard and regularly to be maintained as a tight hedge as small or large as one would want.
This plants distribution extends from the Kei River in South Africa in the south and north along the eastern edge of Africa up to Tanzania. It grows both in dry woodlands moister open woodlands where it is gets larger and more tree-like. The name for the genus us a Greek word meaning "spear' with the specific epithet derived from Kaffraria, meaning the Eastern Cape.
This plant has long been cultivated in the Santa Barbara area when Dr. Franciso Franceschi (AKA Emanuele Orazio Fenzi) arrived in Santa Barbara in 1895 and Peter Reidel in his Plants for Extra-tropical Regions (published by the California Arboretum Foundation in 1957) noted that Franceschi documented a plant in 1903 that was 8 feet tall by 20 feet wide growing on the Kinton Steven's nursery (which would later become the site of Ganna Walska Lotusland). It was also imported by the USDA Bureau of Plant Industry introductions in 1932 (BPI 99415 and 101085). Reidel also noted that a 15 year old hedge had been maintained a height of 1 foot tall and there is such a hedge surrounding the front of the Santa Barbara Museum that for the last 40 years has been maintained at around 2 feet tall. Larger plants can be found as barrier shrubs in Franceschi Park on the Santa Barbara Riviera. We grew this plant at our nursery from 1981 through 2003 and long maintained a solid hedge along Hollister Ave at the frontage of the nursery before the county removed it to put in a sidewalk.
This information about Dovyalis caffra displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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