The super Sour Fig to the rescue

Writer: Anina Lee.

I vividly remember running barefoot through the sandy dune-veld of Klein Brakrivier as a child and landing up in a patch of duwweltjies. It hurt like crazy, especially at the beginning of the summer holidays when my feet were still soft from city life. You can’t go forward, nor backward – either way it’s strewn with the devil’s thorn.

The Suurvy or Sour Fig (Carpobrotus species) grows on sandy flats or on dunes. Its juice has antiseptic properties that make it one of those miracle ‘rescue remedies’ freely available from nature.

PHOTO: GRID-Arendal

I’m of course referring to the vicious thorns of Tribulus terrestris, known in Afrikaans as duwweltjie, derived from the word duiweltjie, meaning ‘little devil’. And they really hurt like the devil. The thorns on the seed are arranged to point in three directions, so whichever side they land up on, there is always one needle-sharp thorn sticking straight up – into an unwary foot. This is of course the plant’s seed dispersal mechanism – stick into anything that passes by like feet or fur – and get carried somewhere else to grow a new colony.

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