Smelly Berry Fingerleaf

mombassae: of Mombassa on the Kenyan coast, where the type specimen was found

Shrub or sometimes a small tree. Bark grey to brown, peeling in strips; growing tips densely covered in orange-tawny hairs. Leaves aromatic when crushed, essentially 5-foliolate but often with outer leaflets deformed or not developed and appearing 3-foliolate. Central leaflet elliptic to somewhat obovate, usually c. 6 × 4 cm but sometimes larger, yellowish-green, with short soft hairs above, more densely hairy below; margin entire; petiolules usually absent, rarely very short on the central leaflet. Petiole 4-9 cm long, with soft tawny hairs. Flowers in few-flowered, axillary heads, obscurely 2-lipped, pale blue or mauve and white to cream; calyx lobes and stalks covered in long tawny hairs. Fruit ellipsoid to almost round, c. 2 × 1.5 cm, fleshy, dark-brown to black, held in the enlarged calyx.

Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Limpopo, South Africa