Assegai Tree

dentata: toothed, dentate

Medium-sized tree. Bark dark and fissured in square patches; young branches covered in dense rusty brown hairs. Leaves opposite, ovate to broadly elliptic, up to c. 10 cm long, leathery, shiny dark green above, light green and covered in woolly hairs below; veining conspicuous below, covered in dense rusty brown hairs; apex sharply pointed; margin strongly toothed. Flowers small and inconspicuous in branched terminal heads, up to 12 cm long, cream, covered in soft, light grey hairs. Fruit subspherical, fleshy, c. 10 mm in diameter, white, turning red when ripe, crowned with the calyx remains.

Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa (Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern and Western Cape Provinces) and Swaziland.