Quiver Tree Forest
Interesting facts
- Quiver trees are common across southern Africa, but natural stands dense enough to be called forests are rare.
- The species name dichotomum refers to the way each branch divides cleanly into two as the plant grows.
- In Afrikaans the plant is called kokerboom, a direct equivalent of its English name.
- The quiver tree is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, and field surveys have confirmed declines across much of its range.
- Botanists moved the species out of the genus Aloe into the new genus Aloidendron in 2013.
- Sociable weavers sometimes build their huge communal nests among the branches of quiver trees.
- Another natural quiver tree forest grows at Gannabos near Nieuwoudtville in South Africa's Northern Cape.
Why it is worth it
The Quiver Tree Forest is not a forest at all. The "trees" are giant aloes, Aloidendron dichotomum, succulents that grow into thick-trunked, many-branched shapes on the stony plains of southern Namibia, and here about 250 of them stand together on the Gariganus farm, an unusually dense gathering of a plant that normally grows scattered across the desert. Their trunks are covered in golden, flaking bark, their branches fork again and again into rounded crowns, and each branch ends in a rosette of grey-green, fleshy leaves. Seen against a hard blue sky, they look more like sculpture than vegetation.
The name comes from the San people, who traditionally hollowed out the soft branches to make quivers for their arrows. The plants are slow-growing and long-lived, and the stand was declared a national monument of Namibia in 1995. Among their roots lie heaps of dark dolerite rock, and rock hyraxes, small furry relatives of the elephant despite their looks, scurry over the boulders and sun themselves on the warm stone.
The place is at its best at the edges of the day. At sunrise and sunset the low light sets the bark glowing orange and throws long, branching shadows across the ground; after dark, with no towns to dim the sky, the silhouettes stand out against a dense field of stars, a sight that draws photographers. Close by, the Giant's Playground continues the theme in stone: a jumble of dolerite boulders stacked into towers and walls by weathering, as if left there by some careless giant.
Getting there
The forest lies about 14 km north-east of Keetmanshoop on the road to Koës, reached by car on a short gravel stretch. Keetmanshoop is on the B1 highway, about 500 km south of Windhoek; the practical international gateway is Hosea Kutako International Airport (WDH), 45 km east of Windhoek, from where most visitors drive. Keetmanshoop's own airfield serves mainly charter flights.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Quiver Tree Forest is a forest and tourist attraction of southern Namibia about 14 km north-east of Keetmanshoop on the road to Koës. It comprises about 250 specimens of Aloidendron dichotomum, a species that is also locally known as the quiver tree because the San people traditionally used its branches to make quivers. The forest was declared a national monument of Namibia in 1995.
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