The 100-year-old Champion Tree on the lush lawns of the University of the Witwatersrand West Campus is a prime example of the greenery heritage Johannesburg inherited from its forebears.
Johannesburg, South Africa (19 November 2022) – Towering over Braamfontein at over 44 metres tall, with a canopy about 38 metres wide, the Wits Champion Tree is thought to be Joburg’s oldest tree, serving as a way of preserving the city’s past and advancing its future.
According to Alan Buff, former JCPZ Horticultural Technical Specialist, the magnificent history of the champion tree and its descendants date back to the 1890s.
“The Wits tree specifically would have seen the Anglo-Boer War, survived the 1922 Rand Revolt, the development of Johannesburg, witnessed the change of South Africa over the last century, and has become a resting place of learners, a meeting place of students, doctors and professors and many more over the years,” Buff highlights.
The Australian eucalyptus camaldulensis (river red gum), known locally as the Wits Campus Tree, is still growing adjacent to the Wits university entrance in Braamfontein. It was declared a Champion tree in March 2010, when JCPZ held its Arbor Day Celebration in honour of the history of such a beautiful specimen.
The 100-year-old river red gum is a shade tree with a high tolerance for cold and drought. The tree is 44 metres tall, with a canopy that provides ample shade on Wits University’s lawns. The tree is also said to be one of Johannesburg’s oldest.
It has smooth whitish bark and matured green leaves, and it is an important pollinator of fruits, vegetables, and seeds.
A tree is deemed a champion if it has been around for decades and has outlived epic moments in its location. This is not far from the reality of the Wits Champion Tree, which has survived a slew of dramatic historical events.
According to Buff, champion trees in South Africa are individual trees or groups of trees that have been identified as having a special attribute, such as history, age, or size, to name a few, and thus protected by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries under Section 12 (1) of the National Forestry Act of 1998.
“Any person can nominate a tree for a selection, be it an individual or group for proposed champion status, but it must be evaluated against a system of categories and criteria to merit champion status, which includes biological attributes, age and heritage or historical attributes,” he explains.
While Joburg’s reputation as the world’s largest man-made forest precedes it, with over 10 million trees planted throughout the city, it was originally a grassland highveld bisected by many riverine which traversed the region. Trees were scarce at the time and grew primarily in protected areas such as Melville Koppies, Northcliff, Lone Hill, Observatory Ridge, and Klipriviersberg, to name a few.
Many trees were planted with the development of agricultural smallholdings during the 1800s, most of which consisted of fruit and wood lots, but they were limited to areas where there was sufficient water.
With the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, the mines required vast quantities of wood from the Blue Gum species for use within their development, resulting in the plantation of Blue Gums throughout Johannesburg.
“With the development of the area during the 1880s/1890s and the influx of people from across the world, many other species of trees were introduced and planted within the suburbs of Parktown and Saxonwold. This resulted in the tree densification of the now leafy northern suburbs prior to the development of central Johannesburg,” he says.
Buff says the naming of champion trees is important; it is a beacon of light for future development within the green industry and a hope to the world’s quest for global warming projects.
With Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo (JCPZ) continuing to plant thousands of trees each year to offset carbon emissions, it is no surprise that some of these have become renowned for their presence and stature over the years.
If only trees could talk, for trees are the historical standpoints which truly live through and endure all the tests of time.
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