Zambezi Fingerleaf

petersiana: named after Professor Wilhelm Peters (1815-1863) of Berlin who collected in Mozambique in the early 19th century.

Multi-stemmed shrub or rarely a small tree. Bark grey fairly smooth; young branchlets velvety. Leaves opposite, 3-foliolate; leaflets broadly elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, up to c. 5 × 3 cm, central leaflet largest, thinly textured, often somewhat greyish-green with a whitish bloom, hairless above,sometimes sparsely hairy on the midrib below; margin often with a few teeth in the upper half; petiolules absent on the lateral leaflets, usually short but distinct on the central leaflet. Flowers in few-flowered, axillary heads, c. 1 cm long, white with a purple-blue lower lip. Fruit ellipsoid, c. 1.2 cm long, fleshy, black when ripe, cupped by the persistent calyx.

Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe