Trees are commonly seen in heraldry. In Britain and Germany, the tree most usually encountered is the oak – so much so that, if a blazon mentions “a tree”, it is automatically assumed that it is an oak. Shown at left is a typical British heraldic drawing of an oak tree: note the exaggeratedly large size of the leaves. This is a heraldic convention that allows one to identify the type of tree instantly. Oak trees do occur in the heraldry of South Africa, but in view of their being imports from Europe or North America, they are usually used in the arms of places or institutions specifically associated with historic oak trees.

In these examples, the oak firstly appears as a silhouette, while in the second and third only sprigs with acorns are shown.

The most easily identifiable African tree is the baobab (Adansonia digitata), which appears in the arms of Limpopo Province. This species is the only kind of baobab that grows naturally outside Madagascar; the island has several varieties.

The national tree is the yellowwood – this encompasses three species of a worldwide genus, Podocarpus falcatus, P latifolius and P henkelii. The poorly drawn specimen in the third quarter of Knysna’s arms is apparently intended to be P falcatus.

Northern Cape has a thorn tree, which unfortunately is not identified. It seems likely to be either the Karoo thorn, Acacia karroo, or the camel thorn, A erioloba.

Ciskei had a milkwood, or umqwashu, representing the milkwood tree near Peddie where the Mfengu people took an oath.

And Limpopo Province features a most unusual tree, the Modjadji cycad, in the coronet that serves in place of a crest in its arms.

There are two distinct trees associated with the Free State (as it is now called): the Oranje Vrij Staat had an unspecified tree in its seal which came to be called the Tree of Freedom. However, through an artist’s interpretation at London postage stamp printing works De la Rue, this became an orange tree (to see how this happened, see here), and was seen as such in the arms of the Union of South Africa.

Finally we find an olive tree in the arms of the Hoërskool P J Olivier in Grahamstown. It forms part of the arms because of the use, in quarters two and three, of a coat of arms connected with the name Olivier; however it is not the arms of the South African Olivier family.