The Wonderboom Nature Reserve is a 1 km² reserve centered on a wild willowleaf fig tree Ficus salicifolia that is more than a thousand years old, found towards the north of the Magaliesberg Mountains in the Northern portion of the Pretoria Metropole, South Africa.
The famous tree is situated at the foot of the Magaliesberg and is currently protected from human traffic around its trunk and roots. As it has grown, its outlying branches have rooted themselves round the parent tree. This has repeated until there are now three circles of daughter trees encircling the mother fig, with 13 distinct trunks, covering a 50m area.
"Wonderboom" is the Afrikaans name that translates as "Wonder Tree," or more accurately "Miracle Tree."
Other features of the Wonderboom Nature preserve include a stone age site that has given up the largest single accumulation of Neolithic tools ever found in South Africa and an Iron Age site, as well as a breeding pair of Black Eagles. One of the historic Boer forts constructed towards the end of the nineteenth century in Pretoria, is located on top of the Magaliesberg within the boundaries of the reserve. The ruins of the fort can be reached by paved walkway and offer superb views of the city. Larger antelope species, such as impala, and zebra are also found on the reserve.
Famous quotes containing the words nature and/or reserve:
“So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, bilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that fret my leaves. Such a one has curculios, borers, knife-worms; a swindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth, plausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)