KNYSNA NEWS - Elephant Foot, Pork Bush or Portulacaria Afra - you can call the Spekboom anything you want except boring. For this beguiling component of indigenous flora is full of surprises. 

It's a virtual carbon-sponge for starters, with an ability to "capture" four to ten tons of it per hectare and convert it to plant matter. 

If you're suffering from pollution problems, this natural antidote to global warming will help clear the air.

It is for this reason that many individuals and organisations have decided to enlist this miracle ingredient and promote its proliferation. The Management committee of Famsa, following a countrywide initiative by the organisation at the end of last year, handed a spekboom plant to each of its offices - including Knysna. 

And wine producer Boplass near Calitzdorp some 170 km to the north-west of Knysna launched an initiative to plant a million Spekbome in the area.

The estate has over 2000 hectares of veld conserved where spekboom accurs naturally. "'If we can get 1000 people to plant 100 plants in private gardens, estates or farms," the owners announced, "that's 100 000 spekboom shrubs helping us fight global climate change."

Apart form its air-cleansing carbon-busting qualities, the Pork Bush also has other enticing/alluring features.

Besides serving as a delicacy for pachyderms, it's a rare gem for low maintenance gardens with its low water demand of less than 350 ml per anum and super adaptability (from rain-forest to semi-arid conditions) and budget-garden boon (simply lop off a cut and stick it in the ground for a brand new one). 

Sort of like a surfer-dude/Superman combo of the local plant world with it's easy-going, hassle-free and life-preserving attributes. As florid superhero, it it also possessed of multiple identities and can surface almost anywhere, any time to serve and save lives as shrubbery, ground cover, hedges, flower-beds or pot-plant.

It's truly a breath of pure fresh air.

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