Strychnos innocua

Strychnos innocua Del.

Common names

Powder bark monkey orange (English); mulungi, mulungi-kome (Bemba); ntemya (Kunda); kambele (Kunda/Nyanja); kabulukulu, kamwela-lumba, mteme, mtulutulu, mgulugulu, mkaye, mkhuyukhuyu, msongoro, mkwakwa, nteme (Nyanja).

General description and distinguishing characteristics

Strychnos innocua is a small tree or shrub up to 13 m tall but usually 3-6 m in height. Bark creamy-green, peeling, becoming pale cream or greenish-grey and powdery. Young branchlets pale grey-brown, unarmed. Leaves simple, opposite with distinctive leaf venation of 3-7 nerves arising from the base of the leaf. Leaf 4-10 x 2-7 cm, obovate-elliptic, dull glaucous green, stiff and leathery, glabrous, margin entire. Petiole 2-6 mm long. Flowers yellowish green to greenish-white, 5-8 mm long, produced in 2-4 flowered heads in the axils of the leaves. Occasionally borne directly on the branches (September-December). Fruit spherical, up to 7.5 cm in diameter with a thick, woody shell, blue-green ripening to deep yellow. Fruit contains an orange-yellow acid-sweet, edible pulp enclosing 5-50 seeds (November-January).

Range and habitat

Strychnos innocua occurs throughout tropical Africa. In the Luangwa Valley it is primarily associated with mixed alluvial thicket and Mopane woodland on sand.