Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A South African plant. See Portulacaria.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) The purslane tree of South Africa, -- said to be the favorite food of elephants.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A South African shrub, of genus Portulacaria, whose succulent leaves are used as fodder

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology. Afrikaans for "bacon tree"

Support

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Examples

  • There were fifty at least of the magnificent animals scattered in groups over the bottom and sides of a valley about three miles in extent; some were browsing on the succulent spekboom, of which they are very fond.

    The Settler and the Savage 1859

  • In the corporate imagination, expeditions such as the Polarstern and plants such as the spekboom serve to buy business a little more time to continue making money for shareholders from carbon-polluting activities, while simultaneously spinning the line that alternatives are being sought.

    Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming RSS Newsfeed 2009

  • Benny Mokaba, the head of the group's energy cluster, extolled the virtues of spekboom, a plant indigenous to the Eastern Cape that has attracted considerable attention among scientists for its potential to soak up carbon.

    Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming RSS Newsfeed 2009

  • "In days gone by, before farming confined the elephants to the park boundaries, the herds used to get from the acacia rich north to the spekboom in the south via the railway culvert.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 1998

  • "In days gone by, before farming confined the elephants to the park boundaries, the herds used to get from the acacia rich north to the spekboom in the south via the railway culvert.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 1998

Comments

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  • By grazing of the tusky herd

    The purslane seed will be interred.

    The succulent spekboom

    Will most likely next bloom

    From out an elephant's dusty turd.

    July 19, 2015