kokerboom, noun

/ˈkʊəkə(r)bʊəm/
Forms:
koekerboom, koker boemShow more Also koekerboom, koker boem, kookerboom.
Plurals:
kokerbooms, kokerbome /ˈkʊəkə(r)bʊəmə/, kokerbomen /ˈkʊəkə(r)bʊəmən/.
Origin:
South African DutchShow more South African Dutch, koker case, sheath, quiver + boom tree; see quotation 1776.
1. The tree aloe Aloe dichotoma of the Liliaceae, growing in arid regions to a height of nine metres, and having a tapered trunk with porous, cork-like timber, upward-growing branches, and a roundish crown; quiver tree. Also attributive.
1774 F. Masson Jrnl. 2 Nov. in Phil. Trans. of Royal Soc. (1776) LXVI. 309We found a new species of aloe here, called by the Dutch Koker Boom, of which the Hottentots make quivers to hold their arrows; it being of a soft fibrous consistence, which they can easily cut out.
1841 B. Shaw Memorials 102Along the stony sides of most of the mountains grow many trees, which are a species of the aloe; each branch is divided and subdivided into pairs; each of these subdivisions is terminated by a tuft of leaves, and the whole forms a large hemispherical crown, supported upon a tapering trunk, which is generally of large diameter, but short in proportion to the vast circumference of the crown. It is here called kookerboom, or quivertree.
1870 R. Ridgill in A.M.L. Robinson Sel. Articles from Cape Monthly Mag. (1978) 31A parched and sandy plain, surrounded by barren hills, on which no vegetation was visible, save the weird kokerboom.
1914 W.C. Scully Lodges in Wilderness 26Huddled in irregular patches..were the ‘koekerboome’. These were gigantic aloes of archaic form and immense age.
1920 F.C. Cornell Glamour of Prospecting 116We outspanned about sunset on an open plateau covered with vegetation and studded with many of the queer looking aloes known as koker boomen, or ‘quiver trees’.
1931 O. Letcher Afr. Unveiled 120We had broken down an old and rotting Koekerboom tree (a species of wild aloe of enormous size).
1950 Cape Argus 5 Aug. 7As you drive northwards through the mountains to Springbok you may see that weird tree-aloe, the kokerboom, flowering beside the road.
1959 J.D. Clark Prehist. of S. Afr. 226The arrows were usually kept in a quiver made from leather..or bark, in particular the bark of the ‘Kokerboom’ tree which is a species of aloe.
1976 Cubitt & Richter South WestBiggest and most impressive of all the aloes is the kokerboom, the so-called quivertree, its fibrous core providing pin-cushion-type quivers for the Bushman hunters.
1993 Weekend Post 17 July (Leisure) 7A solitary kokerboom stands in the foreground.
2. With defining word: baster kokerboom [see Baster adjective], Aloe pillansii; giant quivertree, see quiver tree sense 2.
1990 [see Baster adjective].
The tree aloe Aloe dichotoma of the Liliaceae, growing in arid regions to a height of nine metres, and having a tapered trunk with porous, cork-like timber, upward-growing branches, and a roundish crown; quiver tree. Also attributive.
baster kokerboom [see Baster adjective], Aloe pillansii; giant quivertree, see quiver tree sense 2.
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Kokani, nounn.koki, nounn.
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