Maytenus is a genus of flowering plants in the staff vine family, Celastraceae. Members of the genus are distributed throughout Central and South America, Southeast Asia, Micronesia and Australasia, the Indian Ocean and Africa. They grow in a very wide variety of climates, from tropical to subpolar.

Maytenus acuminata commonly known as Silky Bark, umNama or Sybas is a superb garden plant originally found in the warm, partially shaded valleys of the Little Karoo. It grows to about 10 m high in these valleys and displays long cascading branches adorned with delicate, small leaves that shimmer in the breeze. The leaves are much smaller and narrower than most examples in the Cape. The overall impression one gets is of the fine trees illustrated in traditional Chinese paintings. This evergreen tree is quite variable growing up to 15 m tall in sheltered positions or reaching a height of only 1.5 m in exposed places. Some of the most attractive specimens are the old gnarled plants growing in remnant afromontane forests on the high scree slopes of the Cape mountains. These trees exude age and atmosphere with their adornments of old man’s beard lichen. Insignificant, small flowers are produced in the axils of the leaves in summer and are small, cream-coloured, yellow-green or reddish. The fruit is a small, 1-3-lobed capsule and when produced in great numbers gives the tree an attractive orange hue. The capsules split open to reveal a small seed surrounded by a fatty orange aril. This aril is popular with birds, which aid distribution of the seed.