This tree is famous in South Africa for being used to make Van Riebeeck’s Hedge, the first formal boundary marker between the new Cape colony and the indigenous people of the Cape. The wild almond is most often a large, spreading multi-stemmed shrub to 5 m or a sturdy, well-shaped evergreen tree to 15 m. It has wide spreading branches and a sprawling habit. The bark is thick, rather smooth, pale greyish-brown in colour and attractively striped and mottled. The leaves are dark green, hard and leathery to the touch, long and lance-shaped, irregularly and sharply toothed, with a prominent midrib. They are arranged in whorls of six at intervals along the stems, radiating out like a star around the branch. Young growth is soft and golden as it is densely covered with rusty-brown hairs. The inflorescence is an approx. 8 cm long dense raceme of small (each about 5 mm long), white and sweetly scented flowers. Flowering time is mid-summer (December-January). The fruits are carried in clusters at the tips of branches, and look very similar to almonds. They are almond-shaped, up to 45 mm x 30 mm, and densely covered with rusty or chocolate-brown velvety hairs. The young fruits are an attractive magenta or lilac-purple colour and mature to the typical brown in late summer – autumn (February-May). The original inhabitants of the Cape are known to have used the edible fruits for food, and to have dug up the roots as food for winter. The fruits are poisonous, particularly when fresh, but the poison can be leached out by soaking them in water for several days, then boiling and roasting them. The early settlers at the Cape took over the practice of soaking, boiling, roasting and grinding the fruits to make a coffee substitute from the Khoi. The timber is red and reticulated and hard to saw. It was used in joiners’ and turners’ work, and was popular for ornamental work. It was also used to make bowls, the heels of Dutch shoes, wagon felloes (rim of the wheel) and brake blocks. The bark has been used for tanning.