Burchellia bubalina
Buffalo Wood
Visitors from Spain were pointing out trees and shrubs they were growing and trying to grow at home and particularly pointed out the Buffalo Wood as one they had great success with.
The Buffalo Wood (Burchellia bubalina), the only species, is an attractive evergreen shrub which is not seen very often in gardens in New Zealand. It comes from South Africa and belongs to the madder family (Rubiaceae).
The shrub grows to about 2 metres high and has leathery simple leaves and heads of eight to twelve orange-scarlet, cylindrical-urn- shaped flowers about 25mm long. The fruits are many seeded berries.
Flowering starts in the spring and continues over the summer months and the dense bush looks very attractive for a considerable time.
Happy in full sun or light shade this shrub can stand light frosts but does need free draining soils so if you have clay prepare a mound of topsoil and plant it above the surrounding soil level and you should not have any problems.