Confetti Tree

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.