Rotary Polokwane grows
The Rotary Club of Polokwane is serious about growing its membership and recently inducted three new members. John Mogodi, Vinesh Devchander and Frikkie Ponelis will be allocated to avenues where they desire to make a contribution towards the activities and projects of the club.
President of the club, Susan van der
Merwe believes that the membership of the club should be inclusive and aims to recruit new members from all occupations and groups of interest.
Dr Helena du Plessis, a senior lecturer at the Department of Biodiversity of the University of Limpopo joined the Rotarians at the club’s weekly meeting and presented a paper on spekboom (Portulacaria afra Jacq.). This specific plant is of interest for the Rotarians because they have launched some spekboom planting projects in and around the city, one of which at Mitchell House.
According to Du Plessis, the spekboom is also known as elephant food, bacon tree and porkbush and that it can be used to quench thirst, treat exhaustion, dehydration and heatstroke. Crushed leaves may be applied to blisters, as an antiseptic and to soothe skin ailments such as pimples, rashes, insect stings and sunburn. Leaves can be chewed to treat a sore throat and mouth infections.
“In certain areas, dried stems are used as thatch for roofs of the huts and in Mozambique, breastfeeding mothers eat spekboom leaves to increase milk supply. During famine, the Zulus eat the raw leaves and leaves are a fresh addition to salads and a small sprig will add a delicious flavour to a stew,” Du Plessis said and added that spekboom forms part of vast diet of elephants and that spekboom flowers are nectar-rich and provide food for birds and insects.
According to Du Plessis, the latest popular effort to help reverse climate change is to plant spekboom.
“Viral #spekboomchallenge, shared by thousands of people on social media, encourages South Africans to each plant 10 spekboom plants to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and store it.
“Plant a tree. Combat climate change!” was her message to the Rotarians.