Gymnosporia senegalensis (Lam.) Loes.

The root bark is used locally to treat dysentery. An oil of some medicinal value is extracted from the seeds and known as Oleum Nigrum or Black oil.

A tall shrub or a small tree; young branches often spiny, bearing leaves and flowers. Leaves grey, coriaceous, glabrous, very variable, obovate, oblanceolate or linear-spathulate, obtuse, entire or crenulate, decurrent at the base, 0.5-4.5 x 0.4-2 cm; petioles c. 3 mm long. Flower small in axillary, dichotomous or fasciculate cymes on short branchlets, often forming terminal, elongate panicles. Pedicels filiform; bracts small, lanceolate, acute. Calyx lobes broadly elliptic-oblong, ciliate. Petals oblong. Disc fleshy, many lobed. Ovary glabrous, orbicular; style deeply 2-3-cleft. Capsules globose, 4-5 mm broad, bivalved, purple. Seeds chestnut brown; arillode orange.

Distribution: Tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia.

Fl. Per.: October.

senegalensis: of Senegal

Shrub or small multi-stemmed tree, unarmed or with strong, straight spines. Young branches distinctly red. Leaves blue-green, spirally arranged, sometimes in fascicles on the spines, oblong to obovate, often notched at the apex; margins crenate-dentate. Flowers in dense axillary and terminal clusters, sweetly scented. Fruit a 2-lobed capsule pinkish to reddish-brown when ripe.

Common

Charaxes cithaeron cithaeron (Blue-spotted charaxes)

Sub-saharan Africa from Senegal to Eritrea and south to northern Namibia, Botswana and South Africa; also in southern Spain, North Africa, Afghanistan to India, Aldabra and Madagascar.