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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'. The specific epithet was originally caffra, which was derived from Kaffraria, meaning the Eastern Cape, but this word has negative racial connotations and is now largely considered politically incorrect and offensive with the correct new specific name now being afra, indicating the plant is from Africa.
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.
The information displayed on this page about Dovyalis caffra is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.
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