• Description: Shrub/small tree 1-12m tall

• Native to: Tropical Africa/Asia

• Use: A nitrogen-fixing legume and therefore has a positive effect on the nitrogen content of the soil. It can colonize disturbed veld quickly and curb erosion.

• Fodder: The high protein content can alleviate problems of protein shortage during the dry season, it can be fed to goats as a supplement to low-quality forages.

• Ecology: The pods are very nutritious to animals and are eaten by stock and game, including monkeys, rhinoceros, and bushpigs.

• Hedge: It is often planted to serve as live fencing and as fodder.

• Growing: Drought hardy and tolerates some frost once matured.

• Edible: Fruit

• Description: Evergreen multi-stemmed tree 12m tall

• Native to: Central & Southern Africa

• Use: Fleshy, yellowish green fruits, turning bright red as they ripen. They are edible to both man and animals and are said to be sweet tasting. Although the fruits are edible and sweet, they may be sour and bitter.

• Fodder: Young leaves are also eaten by cattle and goats.

• Ecology: A wide range of animals, including monkeys, bush pigs, kudu, baboons, and warthogs, favor ripe fruit. Cape Parrots, Purple-crested Louries, African Green Pigeons, francolins, and Black-eyed. The leaves are eaten by the black rhino, nyala, kudu, red and grey duiker, and blue wildebeest. This is also a good bee forage tree.

• Hedge: In groups, these trees form a dense and beautiful hedge that can be used as a noise, wind, and dust barrier.

• Growing: Drought hardy and tolerates mild frost.

• Description: Shrub/medium multistemmed tree 9m tall (dioecious)

• Native to: Southern Africa

• Use: It plays a role as a pioneer species in the cycle of plant succession. Often found growing from termite mounds.

• Fodder: For cattle farmers, it makes a useful fodder tree.

• Ecology: Birds are particularly fond of the fruits. Wattled Starling and Red-eyed Bulbuls have been seen gorging on them. Elephants, impala, and kudu eat shoots and young leaves. It is the host plant to the Foxtrot Copper butterfly. In natural areas, elephants, impala, and kudu browse on the tree.

• Hedge: It is sometimes used as a hedge and is suitable for use as an ornamental.

• Growing: Hardy, drought and frost-resistant plant

• Edible: Fruit

• Description: Shrub or small tree 3-9m tall

Male and female flowers occur on separate trees. The clusters of fruit have an attractive, almost multicolored appearance varying from yellow to red-brown.

• Native to: Tropical Southern Africa

• Use: Beer is made from fermenting the fruit, which is edible but sour. 

• Fodder: Domestic animals feed on the tree during times of drought and this does not cause much tainting of milk, which occurs when stock feeds on Searsia lancea.

• Ecology: Game animals such as giraffe, eland, blue duiker, and kudu feed on the mountain karee. While the tree is in fruit, it is alive with birds such as bulbuls, barbets, white-eyes, and mousebirds.

• Growing: Frost-hardy, and drought-tolerant shade tree.

• Edible: Fruit

• Description: Small/medium evergreen tree 7m tall

• Native to: Southern Africa

• Use: The fruits are edible and were once used as an ingredient of mead or honey beer. The word karee is said to be the original Khoi word for mead. Searsia lancea is also useful in providing natural soil stabilization and increasing the infiltration of rainwater into the soil, thus reducing erosion and raising the groundwater table.   

• Fodder: Foliage provides valuable fodder, particularly in dry areas for livestock and game. The leaves are valuable for livestock but can taint the flavor of milk if eaten in large quantities by dairy cattle. The tree is also an important source of shade for livestock in certain regions.

• Ecology: The fruit is eaten by birds such as bulbuls, guineafowl, and francolins. Game animals such as kudu, roan antelope, and sable browse the leaves of the tree which can serve as an important food source for them in times of drought.

• Growing: Tolerates salt spray, frost resistant and drought once established.

• Edible: Fruit and leaves

• Description: Fast growing, Evergreen tree 6-21m tall. aggressive root system and should not be planted in a small garden, near buildings, swimming pools or paths.

• Native to: Tropical Africa

• Use: It is often planted to offer cover from the scorching sun in recreational areas, market centres and schoolyards. It can also be planted to provide shelter during the cold winter months

• Fodder: One of the common and preferred species of fodder trees in west Africa.

• Hedge: Large cuttings can be planted close to each other to form living fences and to help control erosion.

• Growing: Drought resistant, frost sensitive when young.

• Edible: Leaves, flowers and seeds

• Description: Perennial legume tree, 8m tall (fast-growing, short-lived)

• Native to: Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Indian Subcontinent.

• Use: Flowers of sesban are known to be added to stews and omelets in some regions, mainly as a decorative element. Sesban is a nitrogen-fixing shrub suitable as a soil improver. It provides green manure and its leaves produce rich compost. It is also a good windbreaker and provides shade and support for other plant species. Sesban can be intercropped with maize, beans, cotton, para grass, signal grass, siratro, etc

• Fodder. The leaves and tender branches are high in protein (20-25% crude protein) and have high digestibility when consumed by ruminants, such as cattle and goats. Anti-nutritional factors are suspected to be present in sesban fodder. Feeding sesbania fodders to monogastric animals (such as chickens, rabbits, and pigs) is not recommended.

• Growing: Tolerant of saline, light frost, and waterlogging when established.

• Edible: Fruit

• Description: Broadleaf tree up to 18m tall

• Native to: East Africa, Madagascar, and the Arabian Peninsula. 

• Use: The fruit is edible, very sweet, and also used to make beer or pleasantly flavored porridge. The fruit may be eaten boiled with sorghum. A beverage similar to tea is made from the leaves. Large quantities of the fruit are collected, dried, and stored for later use by people in the low veld areas of South Africa.

• Ecology: Birdplum or brown ivory is browsed by game, such as elephant, giraffe, kudu, bushbuck, impala, and damara dik-dik. The fruits are eaten by baboons, vervet monkeys, and birds, especially louries, pigeons, starlings, barbets, and hornbills.

• Fodder: The fruit and leaves can be used as fodder.

• Growing: Drought tolerant, sensitive to frost & cold wind. Grows primarily in the seasonally dry tropical biomes.

• Edible: Fruit & seeds

• Description: Shrub/small tree 5 m tall (dioecious)

• Native to: Central and Southern Africa, except the winter-rainfall

• Use: The fruit has a pleasant sweetish taste, with jelly-like flesh when ripe; its fruits are used to make beer and other alcoholic drinks, and its seeds are used as a coffee substitute. The fruit pulp is translucent and faintly sweet. Only female plants bear colorful fruit.

• Fodder: In the Karoo, it is valued for its shade and shelter, but it is said to taint the milk of cows.

• Ecology: Host plant of the zigzag emperor moth. 

• Hedge: It can form thickets which can be used as a hedge or screening plant. Pinching out branch tips when young will encourage a bushy plant.

• Growing: Drought-resistant and cold-hardy

• Edible: Pod pulp & seeds

• Description: Evergreen tree 7-30m tall

• Native to: Western central and northeastern tropical Africa.

• Use: Grown for its pods that contain both a sweet pulp and valuable seeds. The yellow pulp is naturally sweet and high in carbohydrates. Seeds are high in lipids, protein, and carbohydrates and are a good source of fat and calcium. The seed must be cooked to remove the seed coat and then fermented. Seeds can then be pounded into powder and then formed into cakes.

• Fodder: The African locust bean retains its leaves during the dry season and is thus much valued by farmers who can lop some branches to supplement low-quality forage available to their livestock.

• Growing: Seeds are hard coated, and should be nicked and then soaked in water for 24h before sowing. Once the seedlings have reached 20-25 cm high, they can be planted out at 10 m x 10 m intervals. In the first stages of establishment, the African locust bean is sensitive to browsing and needs to be protected from livestock.

• Growing: Drought and fire-tolerant, nitrogen-fixing, frost-sensitive.

• Edible: Seeds and leaves

• Description: Evergreen shrub 1-10m tall (dioecious)

• Native to: Sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritania - Sudan. (Drier savannah regions)

• Use: This species has a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria, these bacteria form nodules on the roots and fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some of this nitrogen is utilized by the growing plant but some can also be used by other plants growing nearby.

• Fodder: One of the preferred species of fodder trees in West Africa.

• Growing: Nick the seed coat for a better chance of germination.

• Growing: Drought resistant, sensitive to frost.

• Edible: Leaves

• Description: Evergreen tree 10-20m tall

• Native to: South and East Africa

• Use: The leaves are used to add peppery flavoring to food and tea. The bitter taste of the tree's leaves is due to the presence of iridoids. It is attractive and makes a good shade tree.

• Fodder: Leaves are browsed by Black Rhino and antelope.

• Hedge: It is a suitable plant for a hedge as it responds well to pruning.

• Endangered: Threatened by habitat loss, overgrazing and over-harvesting.

• Growing: Moderately drought resistant, and frost-sensitive. 

• Edible: Fruit

• Description: Evergreen tree 7m tall

• Native to: The driest parts of Southern Africa, in warm areas with low rainfall.

• Use: It is valuable as a shade tree. The ground temperatures are said to be considerably lowered in the shade of a Shepherd’s Tree.

• Fodder: It is one of the most important fodder trees, especially in the dry season. It has a very high protein content in its evergreen leaves and both the flowers and fruits are eagerly eaten by birds and antelope. The leaves are often grazed by cattle, although the milk is said to become tainted.

• Ecology: An important food source to browsers such as nyala, kudu, gemsbok, and giraffe. The species has numerous pollinators and is a source of food for various mammals, birds, and butterflies. In semi-desert regions it contributes a critical part of suitable habitat for mammals providing much-needed shade, lowering the ambient temperature considerably.

• Growing: Drought hardy, tolerates mild frost.

• EDescription: Shrub

• Native to: Northern Cape, South Africa.

• Fodder: Leaves are palatable for livestock.

• Endangered: Threatened by habitat loss, overgrazing and over-harvesting. 

• Description: Shrub

• Native to: Northern Cape, South Africa.

• Fodder: Rhynchosia species are palatable for livestock.

• Endangered: During a recent field survey, this species could not be relocated near Numees mine and surrounds on Helskloof, an area affected by severe ongoing overgrazing, and it may already be locally extinct in this area. Overgrazing occurs due to severe overstocking of livestock, causing loss of diversity, vegetation cover, trampling, and degradation. In more remote areas, it is not currently threatened, but as herders move further away from the western lowlands and settlements in search of grazing, grazing pressure may increase in the future.

• Edible: Leaves and seed pods

• Description:  A fast-growing, deciduous reaching a height of 10–12m

• Native to: It is believed to be native to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

• Use: Edible parts of the plant include the whole leaves (leaflets, stalks, and stems); the immature, green fruits or seed pods; the fragrant flowers; and the young seeds. Moringa trees have been used to combat malnutrition, especially among infants and nursing mothers. Moringa thrives in arid and semiarid environments and provides a versatile, nutritious food source throughout the year in various geographic regions.

• Fodder: Moringa is often used as forage for livestock.

• Ecology: 

• Growing: Drought-hardy, frost-sensitive. Moringa is a sun and heat-loving plant that does not tolerate frost. Moringa is suitable for dry regions, as it can be grown using rainwater without expensive irrigation techniques. It is grown mainly in semiarid, tropical, and subtropical areas.

• Edible: Leaves and seed pods

• Description: Small tree, ranging in height from 3–5m tall 

• Native to: West Asia, India, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. 

• Use: The seedpods contain a sweet pulp, locally known as “khoka”, which is eaten by nearly all livestock and humans. Salads can be made from the leaves which is considered a delicacy in the UAE!

• Fodder: Traditionally Ghaf leaves and pods provided food and its nutritious branches were used for livestock.

• Ecology: It is essential for the survival of many animals in its native regions.

• Growing: Drought-tolerant, and can remain green even in harsh desert environments.  The tree is found in extremely arid conditions, with rainfall as low as 15 cm.