Region: tropical Africa, Senegal to Ethiopia, south to Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Habitat: deciduous woodland, watershed grasslands; dambos on Kalahari Sand; lakeshore sand dunes; in high rainfall miombo; mixed deciduous woodland; riverine fringes and mushitu margins; elevations of 500 to 1200 metres; long dry season; sandy, loam and clayey soils
Content: alkaloids, hymenocardine; 12% tannin.
Use: medicinal; food, young leafy shoots, acid flavour; fruit is edible, sour flavour, relished by children; wood; tannins; soil erosion; bark for a brownish red dye which for raffia work; wood for firewood, house-posts, charcoal, pestles and bark-cloth mallets.
BotanyDeciduous shrub or tree; 10 metres tall; often looking gnarled and twisted.
Stem: stunted or contorted; characteristic rough rusty-red bark; to 30cm in diameter; wood is light brown or pink, darkening to orange, close-grained, with conspicuous annual rings, hard, brittle, dense, durable, good resistance to termite-attack.