Cape Beech sets the wrong tone for an African violin

A Stradivari violin is constructed from the wood of spruce, willow and maple, with the sound apparently improved by chemicals added to the timber to control fungi and worms.  

The wood in a good quality musical instrument - whether clarinet or violin - is often described as 'tonewood'. Tonewood has an even grain, no knotty defects and is resistant to shrinkage or swelling. The part of a string instrument that amplifies the sound - the soundboard - also needs to be lightweight and strong enough to hold the tension of strings.

My feature plant today, Cape Beech, Rapanea melanophloeos, is from South Africa. It's finely grained, even-textured wood has been used - according to this sign - to make violins as well a furniture. So while it might make a decent dresser, does it create a beautifully sounding violin?

In a traditional violin, the soundboard (top) is made from spruce and the frameboard (bottom) from maple. The neck, I think, is where the willow comes in.

A paper published last year tested a handful of southern and western African species for their suitability in violin construction, including the Cape Beech (and, interestingly, the Australian Blackwood, Acacia melanoxylon, because it is so widely established in native forests of the Cape).

Wood from Cape Beech, it seems, makes a decent frameboard but a barely adequate soundboard. It does have some potential for a bow or fingerboard. In the end, the researchers landed on Yellowwood (Podcarpus latifolius) for the soundboard, and Sapele (Entandrophraga cylindricum) for the frameboard, neck and ribs, of their 'African violin'. This combination, they said, produced a 'sonorous, strong sound'.

So much for the Cape Beech as a contributor to the orchestra. As a horticultural specimen I'm afraid it is also rather lack lustre. The specimens photographed here are from the Harold Porter National Botanical Garden, at Bettys Bay, near Cape Town. 

The flowers are small and whitish, and not present in August when I took these photographs. The fruits were, and they are very like those of an Indian Hawthorn (Raphiolepis) or an olive (Olea). 

The Cape Beech isn't related to either of these genera, and sits within the Myrsinaceae, a family perhaps best know for the ornamental perennial, cyclamen.

Cape Beech is quite different, as you can see. It is a small tree to 18 metres high, with dull, leathery leaves and at least in young to middle-aged plants, light grey bark (despite the species name, which implies a dark-coloured bark - perhaps present in older specimens).

The common name comes from the grain of the wood, which is said to be like a European Beech, suggesting perhaps that it too might make a half-decent violin wood. The local Xhosa name, isiQwane sehlati, means protea of the forest, a more helpful descriptor given the leaf shape and texture.

Apart from the wood being used to make furniture and poor-quality violins, the bark and roots have medicinal value in treating various ailments. The tannin in the bark has the additional benefit, according to PlantZAfrica.com, of warding off evil spirits.

This is my Sydney colleague Cathy Offord next to the copse of Cape Beech, dreaming perhaps of a mediocre violin concerto or maybe just wondering about the absence of evil spirits.

And this is looking up into the botanic garden, in the other direction, away from the bay.