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South Africa’s cave openings can be hard to spot, but many have wild olive and white stinkwood trees growing near them.

There were camphor trees and teaks and African cedars and red stinkwood trees, and here and there a dark green cloud of leaves mushroomed above the forest canopy.

The reason 180 square miles of open grasslands and scattered acacia and stinkwood trees have been given such a resonant honorific—it’s a World Heritage site, no less—lies mostly hidden underground, in the fossil-rich labyrinth of caves and sinkholes that riddle the limestone bedrock.

Having already returned from an early morning’s filming, Uncle John would sit at the head of a large stinkwood table, pour his muesli, and cut a very ripe banana into it.

A great-grandfather of Ms. Robinson’s, a mining engineer who worked for De Beers, brought the stinkwood dining table back from South Africa.